You were proudly broken

________

You Were Proudly Broken

Show— each part unspoken;

A cabinet of splintered butterflies

Caught aloft in sole vibrance

Before shuffled back into the glossary;

Say— how you changed your name;

And the mantras too

And screwed down the windows, echoing echoing echoing punk rebel songs

From a childhood that was not yours, mine;

Prove— you tore up your own garden

To show the roots were dying, see,

And when they weren’t, how you hacked them anyway

To keep them from sprouting so boldly again;

Demonstrate— how you dissected

What had died on the bone, pulls clean

Leaves the last tucked vernal tendrils

that had to survive.