At Year Three, Audrey

At Year Three
by Audrey

That which doesn't kill you

might yet sever your limbs

leaving you isolated, immobile

and unable to fend off cruelty.


That which doesn't kill you

turns your palms to the sky

ready to receive the next shoe

or to catch what is falling.


That which doesn't kill you

clouds your vision, dampens cheeks

your hearing grows acute to compensate

as do smell and touch, but you bruise easily.


That which doesn't kill you

leaves an aching weight on your chest

bends your back, instructs you in humility and

renders you vulnerable to sympathetic maladies.


That which doesn't kill you

hurts the child you were and hoped to be

deepens your understanding

carves into your skin with its clarity.


That which doesn't kill you --

occupies any space it can find

crowds out some things, makes room for others --

becomes you.

:::

about this piece.
Audrey wrote me about this piece, "I've been writing this draft poem (nothing is ever really final for me) in these days leading up to Eva's day (April 4th). What I have come to realize is that I have a deep need for these rituals of memory and sacrifice and hopefully growth. Additionally, I have become somewhat preoccupied with platitudes. It is something I find myself coming back to repeatedly. Haven't we all heard and been hurt by them? I wanted to flesh one out until it looked like something closer to the truth."


about the contributor.
Audrey is the mother of three, including a set of monoamniotic twins, twins who shared an amniotic sac, which is very rare, which earned her eleven weeks of inpatient monitoring and, sadly, hospital food. Her daughter, Eva, was diagnosed with a heart defect (hypoplastic left heart syndrome) in utero and died from post-surgical complications when she and her twin were 29 days old. As she approaches her personal "Lent" for the third time, Audrey is working to reconcile herself to life's dualities. Audrey writes at Glutton Button.