On Cracking Open A Walnut Shell Poem by Shannon Walker

I searched for truth with all my heart.
I dissected each word with the fervor
Of a scribe in an Italian monastery,
The inflection and control
That accompanied them;
How wide the eyes, that grew
With them, did darken and swallow me whole
Before so casually expelling me,
Like a womb, out into the cold
Again, and again, and again,
And I learned that timing
Was everything, and nothing,
And that sorrow came daily;
And I timed the rising and falling
Of the human heart, and watched it wax bold,
Before closing up and expelling everything
For which there was no room.

And I cried
With all my words
Stenciled across the inside of a white room.

I made new constructions;
The syntax and grammar, I violated
Them both, I violated everything,

Every timid rule, every law, every cultural more,
Trying to construct a virus
That would penetrate another heart

And fill the hole
As mine had disappeared
The minute

I tried to see
Why
It wasn't whole.