By Alexander Perez
you patch up my broken promises, like figurines, put them up on a special shelf. the shelf is full, weighted down. i wait for it to fall, for the promises to break all over, irrecoverable. but you will stoop down to the floor, to search for the shards. you will glue them all together the best you can even though all the old promises will come out misshapen. you could sweep them instead, into a pile, sweep them away out the door, outside our house where i sit thinking on the stairs what to say, hoping you still believe i love you, knowing you do not believe anything else is true. i’m carrying another promise in my hand, a small broken lovebird, a sacrifice for you. you will take it in, attempt to piece it back together until you cannot hold it anymore, your fingertips pierced with invisible glass slivers, pieces of the bird that can never be restored. when it fell from its nest, wings too tired to fly i heard it sing one last time a song i didn’t know was pain. until i heard you humming it to yourself as you walked away putting the bird up on the shelf making room for more.
Alexander Perez (he/him/his) began writing poetry in 2022 at age forty-eight. Since then he has published in several journals and has a chapbook forthcoming from Finishing Line Press entitled Immortal Jellyfish. He shares his life with a loving and supportive partner in upstate New York. For more, feel free to visit perezpoetrystudio.com
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