I’m bad at this, I am,
the whole asserting what I want,
faulting to leave things intact
though I know they are beginning to crumble.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll hear it.
So I stay quiet, waiting.
I’ve been told that earthquakes can be heard
deep in the earth, it’s like a popping sound.
To think, that earth can crumble and break, and still
it comes down subtle and quiet

it comes down to what I want,
and maybe that is nothing,
just the open air.

But even the open air, when caught
in the palm of my ear makes a sound,
it sounds angry, it sounds
disappointed.
Screaming,
filling my head with the noise of every doubt,
“Why,” it asks me, “would you hold down
something that should be free?”

“Why,” it asks me, “are you also not running
with us?”

“Why,” it asks me, “can you not let
the very thing you love go?”