I spent the month of November filling my lungs
with synthetic smoke trying to exhale
the smell of ICU chemicals and gift shop flowers

I drove too fast to the wrong destinations,
wrapped the wrong arms around my waist at night
I covered your scars with battle wounds, and slept
in half my bed to make room for the demons

I watched you become human, a creature
filled with tiny fractures that could trace their lineage back
to invisible grandparents

I worried that you would only ever be mine
in memoirs, that my mother
would lose her name
and feel too small in that ocean of sheets

You spent your birthday in a wheelchair, silently praying
that your fingers would remember how
to press down on metal strings

And when you sobbed things broke in places
we didn’t know existed you said
never and hopeless and
for terrible moments we believed