by Janae Kindt
The Endurant
Remember the shards of glass
before wrists slit by fate.
We’ve been of a predetermined-ness,
roads they’ve set and prescribed
which we’ve walked, no, waded
as floods overtook we, a people
bounded to their roads
with not so much as a glimpse.
Is that where we go from here?
Is it fear beheld, self loathing
burning more than resentment,
living in a house of demons?
I am broken like
the glass crying out to me,
cutting me,
bleeding me to death,
and it’s my fault?
No.
There may be no love,
There may be no hurt.
There may be no anything
but to fly, to take flight
effervescent and pop,
returned to the air.
There is neither true kind
nor fault in broken glass.
There’s truth lying elsewhere,
in something once whole
perhaps borne of the Broken
who yielded Love before
she yielded Brokenness.
I’ve a kind.
We know better
than good/bad binarism,
unforgiven wrongdoings,
rebuked shortcomings.
We are you, for we, too,
forget sometimes.
We, too, are
Primal
and
Human.
We are.
We are truth.
I am.
I am of the broken I am,
and I’ll not be swept up.
I’ll not be blown away.
I’ll be them;
with them;
we’ll be here;
and you can find us
in melody, enduring,
believing and breathing,
for, yes, we are
the inhalation of this world
and exhale,
an honesty,
the comings
and goings
of times,
a
constancy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Janae Kindt (they/them) is a writer, artist, and founder of the intersectional artists collective LitEQ. They are passionate about antiracist writing project development, multimedia publication, and art as a form of community organizing.