When You Killed Me... Poem by Jacqueline Marcel Hawthorn

When you killed me at first it was obvious, predictable, comprehendible
That I would die.
Would float away into nothingness, combust into an ash of myself, a piece of nothing,
A small, pale scar on the face of the earth.
It was apparent that I would be gone, and you would remain. And I was ready:
tensing and flinching, waiting, eyes half closed, for the
moment when my fortress would burn, and inside this armour
my fibres would plummet, my nerves would unwind, my muscles contract,
bones to melt into milky water, skin to drag itself backwards into vacancy, tongue to shrivel into
a withered sod. I was waiting. But when I peeled back the layers of bronze and copper,
unchained the lungs and allowed them to gasp, it became clear that you had not
killed my heart – wretched, frantic, writhing as it was – but merely taken it
captive. By then I was tired, and it ached terribly when I dragged the long limbs of former life,
streaking scarlet across the past, I do not pretend it was not hard,
recaptured the castle, fortified the gates with a doubled guard,
restored the treasury, piece by piece, built up the brick walls with the ruin
of before, and planted several ageless trees against the door. I thought I had died. Look at me now -
alone but revived. Picturesque as a ruined castle, and with just as much warmth inside.