The Hurting Kind: Poems

by Ada Limon

A stranger writes to request my thoughts on suffering.

Bury the broken thinking in the backyard with the herbs.

When did kissing become so dangerous? Or was it always so?

New York is cold, but I like where I’m living.

And so I have two brains now. Two entirely different brains. The one that always misses where I’m not, and the one that is so relieved to finally be home.

Maybe this is suffering? I thought. Am I suffering now? Or now?

To me, it didn’t make sense to trust a thing that could destroy you so quickly,

I am the hurting kind. I keep searching for proof.

I will not stop this reporting of attachments. There is evidence everywhere.

I miss who we all were, before we were this: half-alive to the brightening sky, half-dead already.