Two Halves of One

Their roads diverged.

One died; the other carried on—

one kept living with a dead girl lodged in her ribs,

and the other, in dying, continued to live.

They were one body once,

until one turned toward light

and the other toward night.

A single bitter instant—

a hard-bladed accident—

swallowed the bright breath of a nine-year-old girl.

In memory she stays unbroken:

still child, still laughing—

a small sun spinning in a room that never changes.

Somewhere beyond the clock,

she twirls and dances

in the country where names do not decay.

But the body left behind—

the body that remained and breathed and moved—

walks as if buried:

hollowed from the inside,

soft with rot,

always running,

always weeping.

The girl has no spirit.

It was stolen long ago,

quietly, like a candle pinched between two fingers.

Time has stopped at her knees,

caught in the loops of children’s games;

and the flesh, without its flame,

is only a cold house—

a shell that shies away from life.

One moment.

One soul. One body—

torn apart.

The body lives, yet is truly dead.

The soul is dead, yet truly alive.