They said I couldn’t write with a broken hand
so I believed them.
I dropped my pen, disposed of the paper,
and locked my keyboard in a cage
to condemn.

Without a working hand, they said, you are useless
so I gave all my hopes and dreams a wave farewell
as the thousands of words that flooded these pages
went still, rippled, and evaporated into steam.

They said I couldn’t write with a broken hand
and after years of saying I know
even though I didn’t
but pretending I did
so I could fit in,
I learned to write
with a broken hand.

They said I couldn’t love
with a broken heart.
Yet ink was continuously pumped through my veins
and into my heart, sealing it at the seams
and I learned to love
with a broken heart.

I wrote love poems and
used them to mend my heart
like a cast only you could sign
because that’s all I could ever ask for–
all I ever wanted– your name
etched onto my heart in the red ink
coursing through our veins.

I wrote love, tragedy, and pain
then watched the words circle down the drain
because even though my broken heart
stopped me from feeling you grow near,
my dear, as I became overwhelmed with fear,
my broken hand still caught every kiss you blew me.

And as we swung from that tree branch
on our first date,
my hand may have given away
but despite my broken heart,
you reached down your broken hand,
and wouldn’t let us fall apart.