Part 16

Things break in predictable ways. The shard, the
jagged edge and the dust cloud follow a rule, a
pattern, a story. The way day breaks over and
over again without complaint, the way a promise

is broken without a sigh, without ceremony,
the way silence breaks without a word, without
a sob. The way we broke without ever being
whole. I didn’t turn around. Not when I was

gathering parts of me that weren’t parts. Not
when I was mending parts of me that weren’t
me. How does it break, a thing that was, that
never was anything? The way a tree snaps and

falls but no one knows, no one hears? Or the
way the monsoon sky, sapphire in the morning
light, curdles into viscous grey, for a while? I
shattered like a mirror, no longer a mirror but

a thousand mirrors, each seeking the whole
of me, each holding a part of me, reflections
within reflections, the way a solitary star
implodes and swallows the entire universe.