What Splits

The freeze cracked it wider.

I noticed this morning

when my shoe caught

and I nearly went down,

caught myself on the rail,

and stood there

staring at what I'd been stepping over

for months.

The concrete has lips now,

raised edges where the break

has shifted,

a small geography of damage

that only got worse

when the temperature dropped.

Dead leaves collected in there.

Dirt.

Small things falling in

and staying

because the gap was deep enough

to trap them.

I watched a piece of paper

blow in

and stick,

and thought about how

anything could live in there now,

anything small enough

to fall through.

This is how things break.

Not suddenly.

Not from one blow.

Just from the seasons,

just from the ground

being too cold to hold itself together,

just from the weight

of enough footsteps,

enough time,

enough people

walking over it

without thinking

that it was cracking.

I step over it differently now.

Deliberately.

Like I'm acknowledging

that it's broken,

that I know,

that I'm choosing to step over it

instead of pretending

it's solid.

It isn't.

Nothing is.

We just pretend

until we trip.