Fallen

Lately I’ve been falling apart, not into pieces but into places,

locales I avoid as if I’m a soldier careening over our memories like landmines.

Because wars and love never really end. Instead they wither down

to infinitesimal fragments that are meaningless without context or clues,

impossible to wash away or pry from our pores or the synapses of our brains.

So I skip our cafe and sidestep the homeless woman who witnessed our dissolution,

creeping home at night to extract those millions of tiny moments and try

to piece them back together again in hopes of a truce.

—

Sarah Clayville is a high school teacher and freelance editor in Central Pennsylvania. An assistant editor for both Identity Theory and Mothers Always Write, her fiction and poetry can be found in The Threepenny Review, StoryChord, Literary Orphans, 1:1000, and other journals. Visit SarahSaysWrite.com for other works and her blog, on writing.