This Is Not All

Blooming is rarely
a graceful opening
toward sunlight.

​

Sometimes
it is a breaking—

​

the splitting open
of the life
that no longer fits.

​

What once held her

now takes.

​

It looks like exhaustion.

​

Undone laundry.

Bills spread across the table.

​

A woman
watching the silhouette of her life dissolve
and whispering,

​

this cannot be all.