BY CHRISTA FAIRBROTHER
Copyright is held by the author.
Pain is Wind
wearing you down. Specks of dust, pebbles picked up. Pelting exfoliation, erosion — gathered bits of you turn to dust devils. Hoisted high into the atmosphere, your particles amplify the sun’s rust, and carried on currents across continents they rain down as a hurricane on the other side of the world. Tears structures stem to stern, peeling back roofs revealing empty houses. People flee before pain.
life made stiff
sharpened horizontals
moving one direction
away
Pain is a Pause
blinking bright colour
between start/stop, caution, slow down
proceed with care
The morning space, liminal, before you rise, but after you open your eyes. A time to take stock, brew a pot. A lean against the plush arm of the couch. An inhale, sharp and held at the peak of conversation while you compose yourself. The gaps between the pierce of your skin, blood’s bloom, and a tear’s swell. Before your body speaks. Before your body howls. Before you turn a cold shoulder to your body’s screams.
***
Christa Fairbrother, MA, has had poetry in Arc, Epiphany, Pleiades, and Salamander, among others. Currently, she’s Gulfport, Florida’s poet laureate, and she’s been a finalist for the Leslie McGrath Poetry Prize, The Prose Poem Competition, The Pangea Prize, and was a Pushcart Prize nominee. Connect with her on Bluesky, @christafairbrother.
