What poetry has taught me
is that if a tree falls in a forest
and there’s no one around to cry for it
the other trees will learn how to.
In the wake of another splintering
they will say,

I see you.
I too am growing sideways.

Tell me how you loved the world and it let you down, bruised and broken.
Tell me how you crawled out from the wolves’ den, scratching, screaming, wild.

Something sinister hides inside, ill-omened, be careful not to wake it up,

it bites back.