The First Fracture

i held it because someone had to—
she called me her favorite.
her sorrow arrived like a storm,
and i became the bowl she poured herself into.

young, i learned to steady a voice that wasn’t mine.
i believed it meant i was the one
who had to keep her whole.

i remember the year she shattered—
how the house tilted toward her grief,
how i moved through the rooms
collecting what she dropped—
confessions,
the small, bright pieces of a life
she couldn’t hold together.

i didn’t know then that i was learning a skill.
her breaking taught me the language—
the way a voice splits midsentence,
the way a house rearranges itself
around a wound.

i was young, parsing the fault lines,
learning damage’s fluency—
how every story has a seam
you feel before you see.

she spilled herself into me—
her fear, her wanting, her wild,
calling me the only one who understood.

i was young, too young to be the place
where someone else lived,
but she made a room inside me
and i kept it lit, believing that was love.