Light Filters In: Poems

by Caroline Kaufman

I am dying in order to keep everyone around me alive.

as a writer, a lover—I seem to be destined to give as I’m falling apart.

while you were reading this, someone committed suicide. this page is for them.

don’t tell me my brokenness is beautiful. this is not beautiful. this nearly killed me. this is not something for you to romanticize. I am beautiful. this (depression) (anxiety) (pain) is not.

I spent so long burying the ruins under dirt and sand and anything else I could find. trying to pretend it never happened in the first place.