Brittle Bones

Standing there, with brittle bones.

Held up by some force I cannot begin to wrap my head around.

You sway from time to time and I react, unsure if to catch you or run from it all.

There is a tenderness to you, even through your desperate attempt at fortitude.

I can watch you all day, but I never say that.

I do not think you would hear it anyway.

There is a stillness about you, and I cannot help but respond to it.

I move and shape my body and emulate a force. A power. I am bold.

And though I continue to tell myself this, my arms contort and my hips loosen and I am caged inside myself.

I sit in this, I feel it fester.

And still I am here, covered in the thought of you.

I work you. I work on you. I work over you. But I am the one overworked.

I avoid how much I want to stare at you.

Perhaps because you cannot stare back, or is it that you do not want to?

I change my perspective. Another angle. I change again. Once more. No, twice.

I fear I am the one who will constantly change just to see you.

And you just stand there, unmoved.

I am losing sight of what brought me here in the first place.

Another approach. Effort. I put my hands on you.

I still see an outside force keeping you sturdy, and still I am unsure how it works.

I reach out, there is contact, I am on you- I feel nothing.

Or maybe it is that you do not want me to.

Buildings and men alike, not all have blueprints meant to be public.

Sometimes a man you do not know is like a structure you cannot understand.

How is it you are such a strong element, but a cold one all the same.

Only after I offer my warmth, a spark to a fire (evidently there is friction inside you).

A gas chamber needing an ignition; only then do you conduct such heat.

I know in this moment I will continue to work you endlessly, with all parts of me, all but one.

I keep that one to myself. I hold on desperately. I cannot love you. Not openly, never willingly.

But after all, a worked moment, an observed structure, a desperate spark. And nothing left to show for it.

Just destruction. Decay. Solitude. A finality. And this haunting translucent depiction of you.

From a time when you stood here, when I could feel you.

There is a stillness everywhere now.

And outside of me, it is quiet.

I salvage the pieces that can rebuild.

I stand here with brittle bones of my own, and only now, I can finally understand you.

On how you stood.

On why you swayed.

I am unknown.

I am unmoving.

I am rigid.

I am stoic.

I am misread.

So I start again.

I am held up by some force I cannot quite understand.

However, I build.