There's a word that means worn.
That means tired and unraveling, just barely holding on --

and you curl your arms around yourself
hide your face in your hands
your trembling body in corners of locked bathrooms
so you face the world intact.

Your roommate said -
she was talking about surviving,
about last year,
before the two of you even knew each other existed,
about hard thing that wrecked your lives,
that made last year ****, and she said -
"But even at the worst parts,
I think some part of me knew
that I would make it through this."
And you hesitated a second or two longer
than you should have, before replying,
"It wasn't like that for me."

You think, in a way, that you were beyond threadbare, last year.
You were falling to pieces and assisting in your own self-destruction
- and so maybe you had people, but -
you didn't know how to recover from that,
didn't even know if you could,
if you would ever be able to.
And it was hard, and work,
but you dragged yourself up to a state
where you could
stand on your own two feet.
Where you built up a coat, again,
against shattering,
against haphazardly breaking.

But what's to stop the wind from pushing?
What's to stop your threads unraveling,
one by one, til all that's left is dust?

It's different, this year.

This year isn't just a matter of your reactions -
it's all the things outside of your control
stacking up and falling over.
It's a jenga tower whose blocks call to you in connection,
whose placements you had no part in whatsoever.
It's watching, and waiting, and hoping.

But all hope runs out eventually.

Your fall is more graceful, this year.
It's slower, gentler, and almost silent.

You are so tired of people you know dying:
one after another, after another, after another.

You were sadness in rage and emptiness, this time last year.
This year, you are just sad,
in a permeating fashion.
It's not -- it isn't -- you are used to it,
You just are tired of that,
Miss people, alive people and barely hanging on people,
don't let yourself think about the others
- you're scared where that will take you -
(you can pretend to be heartless pretty well, at this point)
You miss not having the sadness with you, constantly,
(and hey, at least this year you remember what that's like)
but --
It's an I can live with it kind of habit, this year -
you are being pulled apart, but
you are keeping yourself together.

you are keeping yourself together, still.

Sometimes, you feel so young, so fragile --
         you're going to break apart, and shatter
          into a million, billion, pieces, enough
          so you can't ever be put back together --
but somehow, you always are, and so here you are still,
far too old.

Crying while sleeping,
Dying while breathing,
Hiding while living.

But it's starting to get better now, somehow.

And -- it's strange. Not being miserable.
Foreign, to sleep through the night;
Odd, to be able to laugh so easily,
New, to not always be terrified.

Strange, but good. Right?
Except you don't know how to live like this,
when your hands wouldn't stop shaking
for five hours last Wednesday,
and two last Sunday and just Yesterday,
and you couldn'tbreathe and couldn'tsee,
but in this world, you returned still intact.
Still able, to see the view on the horizon,
which, you couldn't, before.
(it's Beautiful.)

So you can't be shattered glass,
Because your jagged pieces
Don't cut you, anymore,
Don't steal blood, out from your veins --
Just poke, and ****, and pierce,
make you fall down to your knees,
but allow you to get back up,
however slowly.

And so maybe, you're an archetype of clay.
The glass that was half-empty
ran wrong in the kiln,
melded with that ***, over there,
sitting collecting dust
until it got fired by accident,
got transformed, into something stronger.
Better, maybe. Less breakable, definitely.

And this item of misshapen pottery,
You are not suddenly invincible.
You do not even want to be,
Can barely move in this new skin,
Can barely understand yourself,
when you can feel your jagged pieces,
sometimes, just beneath the surface --
except now, often encased, entrapped.
The clay is starting to save you, and
Maybe, you're starting to believe that, let it.

Because you texted your friends,
on Wednesday and Sunday and Friday,
with a seven hour time difference,
hands trembling and unsteady,
and you said, please.
please, convince me that I'm okay.
And they told you they couldn't
but they did, and you're pretty sure that otherwise,
you would have been swept away to an incinerator.
And be gone, right about now,
instead of glued together, and kept,
become partially ceramic.

And this is a thing you will not forget.

Maybe, someday, you'll be an alloy of steel,
or an un-cracked cup, or blackened metal,
or even wood, splintered but growing.

Or you could stay like this.
Could learn how to live, again,
without the helpless sense,
of your own desperation choking you constantly.
Til everything good
isn't quite so foreign to you.

You'll learn how to be better, and maybe it'll stick.
(because afterall, you hated it,
      always being on the edge of tears,
      and constantly fake smiles,
      not being able, to see the light in day,
but you're used to it, your own fragility.)

You're scared it's not going to last.

What you're wearing is not--
You bought the shirt yourself, to remind you of a trip.
The black jeans are from your mother,
                            are from a branch of a store that started back home
Your bracelet is a reminder of your host mother, who made it,
                           (and because you like purple)
Your glasses you need to see, are years old, with constant smudges,
Your hair is plaited because
         your mom used to give you french braids, daily,
         and it's since become a nervous habit
Your hair tye is just old, and used, from
                                           you don't even remember what year.

So, what you're wearing, it's not meaningless.
                                                    ­                              -- it's who you are.
It's the people you miss and the things you keep -
Because you've moved, so many times now, that you know
that everything you own fits into about 12 boxes, and
that's alright.

But it means that what you own -
what you own, is who you are.

And if that's the case,
then you're a mix of anyone who's ever been kind to you -
and that's a lot. A whole lot.

You
            belong
              here,
           right on
             the tip
              of my
             tongue.

              Life is
            way too
               short.

               Break
            the rules:
              forgive
              quickly,
          kiss  slowly,
            love like
               crazy,
             be loyal,
              and be
              faithful
           and  never
               regret
            anything
                 that
                made
            you smile.

              Love is
            not proud,
              it's kind,
             it's patent
             and never
                 fails.
                                                                                        Jon York   2019