Kneecap on the edge

The stairs caught me unready—slip,

a crack, a pop—sharp as a whispered slap.

I press my hand to the knee, wet heat

spreading slow like a secret bruise.

A smear of red stains the white wall,

dirty and small like a whispered shame.

My body folds around the ache,

not quite pain, not quite surrender.

That edge, so sudden, a breaking point,

the small betrayal beneath skin and bone,

reminding me I’m held together by precarious things,

fragile as an accident waiting.