This is what happens when you read sylvia plath

bravery is in the flowers that grow

through cracks in crumbling pavements

in their bent stems and crushed petals.

A resolute brokenness

that seems to whisper

I have been broken before,

I have been shredded and torn

and troddenn on

and I am still here, and you can't change that

and apparently,

neither can I.

My heart beats,

even when I don't want it to.

It pumps blood through my veins

It times the tempo of my breathing

a metronome in the shape of a clock

that counts the seconds i try to steal from it

that watches my youth slip through my fingers

trying to catch success like smoke.

My heart is a glorious mess of scar tissue.

It loves me when I beg it to stop

it squeezes and grows to make room for every new sunrise

when I am particularly hopeful

I imagine its craters and hollows match the moon

when I am not,

I imagine it shapeshifts

takes on the form of a fist

closed tight enough to leave

crescent-shaped scars.

the pulse in my wrist taunts me

with a timed ode to existence

a sonnet of survival

That seems to whisper

Who do you think you are

To think you could break me

In any way that matters.

(I take a deep breath and listen to the triumphant beat of my heart. I am, I am, I am)