The Middle of Going

I stood in the middle of it too long.

Someone asked if I was okay

as they passed.

The rusted cable

held the weight of everything

I couldn't say out loud.

My reflection in the water

was fragmented,

unreliable—

split into pieces

by the current,

by the motion,

by the refusal

to stay still.

The bridge is the place

between two places,

the moment between

leaving and arriving,

the nowhere that's

also the everywhere.

I watched the water move.

I watched my face

break apart and come back together,

break apart and come back,

and I thought:

this is what I am—

a thing that can't hold

its own shape.

Someone asked if I was okay.

I didn't answer.

The bridge held me

in the middle,

and I let it.