I reminisce of weightlessness: 

peering down into 10, 20 feet of air.

My delicate days, 

I recall,

as a haze 

full of branches:

a careful cloud 

of offshoots 

that, long as I could, 

I held on to. 

 

But time has dragged me 

toward the precipice.

I recollect of exuberant endlessness

For blameless ecstasy's sake.

 

Despite the pressure,

my heart don’t dare break —

but it green-stick fractures.

 

I woke this morning with my chest full of splinters. 

My dog tired eyes misplaced the stillness. 

I tried to recapture it, 

but catching your breath takes time. 

 

My weightless home, blue-gray as my cyanotic face.

Daily I wake and

my heart don’t break,

but I am not too good to cry 

like the four-year-old that lives inside

me.