A Vase or a Book

I give to others,

Because, like poetry is the truth

In the breath and words I exhale,

I cannot love any other way

Than deeply and rawly.

I reject, refuse

The fear of loss, becoming less.

Vital parts breaking away, a final straw,

Rendering me, finally, as dust.

I won’t be a vase made of fragments,

But rather cloth, sewn with music,

Touches, places, sunlight and space,

A book on the shelves, worn and sturdy,

Remembering the love and fire

That gilded the pages.

And in that glinting gold,

All the wealth of my life.

– Sara Myriad, 2021