canticle of healingI. the day we broke up was an x-ray, seeing my internal structure for the first time in months. you had told me then that my tumors were just birthmarks, swollen with the kind of fear you could kiss away. but the injuries were always there, and when you came around to prescribe yourself to me, you only hid the parts of my body that needed repair.II. you traded the worth of the time we were given for a promise of eternity that you have never kept. i know you spat the certainty of forever to all the girls who came before, and their brilliance or mine was a shiny thing you found on the sidewalk and then dropped when you found something shinier. you sputter "forever" like it is not a sandcastle that often wears as the tide sets in, a construction only kept alive by defenses stronger than sand or teenage ignotism or the hands that you thought were strong but were too small to hold all of my trembling parts.III. even now, i think