After the Playhouse Fell

In the penumbra of a shattered playhouse, I remain,

Laughter’s afterimage drifting through migratory sand.

I built it from breath and provisional hours-

You leaned upon it, measuring its endurance.

When it collapsed, you said: this is how dwellings learn.  

I gathered warmth in bowls-rice, evening, care.

You called it surplus and cleared the floor bare.

Memory flared briefly, then receded,

Like ink summoned at dawn and promptly unneeded.  

I left a girl sleeping in attenuated light.

You named it instruction, not neglect, not night.

She drowned without witness, without appeal,

And you baptized the water, not what it concealed.  

I tethered a kite to the clemency of air,

Trusted the sky to honor my care.

You demonstrated how strings refine into blades,

How ascent is indicted for the risk it makes.  

Stories once arrived when the dark grew humane.

You concluded them early and sealed my brain.

Chromatic wings unfurled, almost whole-

You audited the feathers, then annulled the soul.  

A song hovered at the verge of my breath.

You aborted it gently and christened it depth.

You said music must kneel to be spared,

Must forget the reason it ever dared.  

I planted a vine as a memorandum to tomorrow.

You warned me roots are complicit in sorrow.

Now it is dust. My mouth knows coal.

You fed me patience and titled it soul.  

You lodged in my hearing, rehearsing my fear.

You said the future constricts from here.

You said pain is how gods authenticate grace.

You said fire, too, can be blessing’s face.  

You once led me heavenward, briefly, then cast

A vessel of flame upon my head.

You said I hurled the stone at you-

My palm was open; you swore it was true.  

You smiled, dispensed sweetness, then requisitioned my bow

To resolve a dispute with wings you did not know.

You removed the nest I built in a dream

And repurposed it to still something green.  

You held my harvest, explained possession with care,

Ate while instructing me how to forbear.

You agitated the trees until smoke rose from my hands,

Made me inhale adulthood between stone and command.  

You furnished me with a cranium of gears,

A body accruing weight and years.

Four walls. A sound device drained of echo.

Time that proceeds but never goes.  

Yet still-

Within this debris, an ember persists.

A recalcitrant pulse that resists.

From every laceration, a tenuous gleam,

A filament stitching the torn regimes of dream.  

Specters convene. Serpents ascend.

Storms rehearse their inevitable end.

Let the tigers of incandescent noon

Memorize your scent too soon.  

Let the playgrounds you emptied testify.

Let tomorrow’s rain descend sky-high.

Let the firmament above you split and lean.

Let it fall. Let it flood. Let it mean.  

The playhouse is gone-but I endure.

Through mute collapse, through loss made sure,

Each tear a river, each scar a psalm,

In these ruins, I retain my form.  

When darkness lingers, refusing to leave,

When every color forgets how to breathe,

I locate my breath within the storm-

A vow that denies a terminal form.  

After the rain, the sky will clear.

Not by your sanction-

But because I am here.