Hollow-eyed,
delicate and disheveled
her fragile limbs were not her own
she cried into the open air
everything tasted like
saltwater and the words he took back
she was all bones

Twelve train rides and
thirty-eight cups of black coffee later
she began to revel in her own skin
she kissed her knees
just
because.
She dug her fingernails into her palms
fascinated by the crescent marks they left

She greeted everyone on the street
and in the evenings
her whole self ached for him
Sixteen ice cream cones later,
she met an old woman who treated her
to glimpses of new worlds
She realized with a start
that he could not be everything
because there is just so much

She became enamored with
the way a local homeless man
smiled at the birds
She
wrote breathtaking, impassioned
poetry on her walls

she was all bones
she found wonder in her own skin,
along with a choice
to
persist to the very last sentences