we are all scars
and open wounds
filled with all the lives we live
and all the deaths we meet
we are comprised
of a million types of silence
only broken by the rapid beating
of softly shattered hearts
we sink like stones
in their sea of sound
we swing on a pendulum
between elation and fear,
between who we are
and who we used to be,
between the warmth of promise
and the cold burn
of all the things we never knew
we walk this precarious edge,
determined to stand tall
when all we really want to do,
some days,
is f a l l
-ashley jane