house your pain
in a birdcage
don't put it in a cement box
where it can concentrate
and get bigger,
fouler
let it breathe

and maybe someday
with enough air
that pain will go away
taken on a breeze
that had nothing to do with you counting scars

...good things happen
you told yourself so
this morning in the shower
good things are brand new baby girls
that don't know what a family they've been born into yet
soft, sweet-smelling darlings
who don't understand the politics of their birth

good things happen, red.
just not to us.