The Bandage

Even metaphors bleed.

And still
we keep placing small things
over what is large.

A bandage
over a wound.

A word
over a scream.

A hand
over the sternum
as if the body
can be convinced
to stay closed.

But some pain
is too wide
for anything clean.

Some wounds
do not want covering.

They want the truth
to sit beside them
without looking away.

I have tried
to be careful
with what hurts.

I have tried
to dress the ache
in language

to make it decent

to make it something
a person could hold
without being frightened.

But the wound knows.

It knows the difference
between cure
and concealment.

It knows
when tenderness
is only a bandage

and when tenderness
is a hand
willing to stay.

So do not ask me
if I am healed.

Ask me
if I am still breathing.

Ask me
if the wound
has become a mouth.

Ask me
what it says
when the room is quiet

and no one comes
with a cure.