Should I be afraid that I no longer feel?

That I stare death in the eyes, hold hands with

Pain, kiss fear on the cheek and embrace heart

Break like it is the one thing that holds my

Worn being together, desperately clutching

At the frayed stitches of my body and

Fervently keeps the hemline of my soul intact

Like the nightmares of this universe are what

Keeps me whole, keeps me from crumbling entirely

Because my heart knows no better than pain

Because I have never known a world without

Agony and grief, and mellowed screams and

Lullabies of sobs and birdsongs of quiet pain

Because my fields are infertile without grief,

Because my skies are starless without heartbreak,

Because my soul is void without my scars that

Scream. They scream the stories that ignite

the raging wildfire behind my damp oak eyes

Each word, on each page, of each blood stained,

tragedy, pull the threads of my being into a living,

Fighting, person. There is beauty in melancholy,

Tears that birth sunflowers that blossom without sun

Light, that glares through the cracks of my heart,

Without a match to light it. Only silent, sobering

Pride, that I have made it to today. That I have seethed

Through the stab wounds and gunshots and blistering

Burns of unspeakable pain, and I have survived with

Grace, with a smile that embraces the worn corners of

This earth, and with a heart that leaves love wherever I go.