I won’t tell her it is up to her
to repair the broken world.
Perhaps that comes later
with pen or needle, pointe shoe or song.
But for now, the thing to do
is to sit together in the broken world
and feel how it is to be broken.
To let shame sit with us.
Let grief sit with us.
To feel the sharp nails of fear.
It is not wrong to feel small,
to feel frightened, to be lost.
Nor must we feel these things alone.
So for now, I sit with her
in the brokenness
with no tools, no salve,
no metaphor of redemption.
It is not enough, perhaps
to meet brokenness
with nothing but love
and breath and a willingness
to be nowhere but here,
but in this broken moment,
it is everything.