Matty Layne Glasgow

How to be strong

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                                         Truth is
           I cry for weeks at a time.
Truth is
my cheeks tasted of saline
                 long before
my mother died, flushed & full
                               of something
like shame. My eyes needed to
let go.
        I’ve been told not to break
                                a line
without forethought, but
                   melancholia doesn’t
come on like that. Some of us
never learned
to smile & mean it.

                                      If I could,

I wouldn’t
be writing this poem, so I’m
                                      gonna let
it feel like it doesn’t need to be
                         a man, to be
brave.  I’m gonna let this poem
lie
           in the fetal position in its
apartment for days

                                 not knowing

when
             or if
                       it will move again.

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grounded

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at seven, I learned

the law of gravity:

eyes pulled down-

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ward to feathers

to wings splayed up-

on the grass & fire-

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dusted chest to sky

like ants spilling

from those empty

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eyes, & when I fell

i saw the clouds be-

neath my feet. how the

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world refused to stay

in place. it still falls &

crawls where it does

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not belong—in hills

in mounds fashioned

of feather & bone.