you hear it in her song
the loss of him
bright anvil of the sky
dropped down onto the shell
of one not ready to emerge
(they whisper drugs and suicide)

shards of innocence still flow
prisms coloring the tears inside the words
kaleidoscope of pain
you wonder if hearing
the beauty makes you responsible
but then, no
you don't know her at all

yet if the anvil is the sky
and the sky is the world
and if someone had listened
before the songs began to bleed. . .

some twisted, scarred Quasimodo-part
that hides away feasting
on its own sadness whispers:
if not this tragedy
if not this time
the wild fragility of spun glass
shattering in the light would not be

compassion answers:
too young to know
the crumbling self-made purgatories
where ragged souls go
thinking they must belong
too young, but perhaps
just to be alive is to know. . .

and now the song is ending, you
can put yourself away again
rebuild your walls, convince
yourself she never did get in
walk away grateful that you can go
shut and lock the necessary doors

looking everywhere but
at the exquisite
and terrible bits of shell
and hummingbird
still clinging to your heart