Fragility: An Ode to the Stars

Photograph by Natalie Anderson

By Tatymn Snider

Reconnecting with my parents

after five years of stifling,

Has left me picking at old wounds

that I thought had long scarred-over.

I had found home in friends

whom I kept at arm’s length

And a shared bed with strangers.

It is said our destiny is written 

by the stars and planets

Celestial bodies gazing down at us

Watching our birth, mocking our mortality

With this cruel game of chance.

But my path was not written in the stars.

It was molded by my father’s fists

and cut by the shards of glass in my heart

Left by my mother’s sharp words.

Home is not a house

but a place in my heart

Where the child inside me goes

to seek comfort from my own hand.

“Be still,” I hear.

“Rest, for tomorrow brings new light

to show the path before you.”

Home is not a house,

but the soft nest

Within the tenderness of my flesh 

and the strength in my soul.

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Tatymn Snider is a California native who attended UC Berkeley where they studied art history, philosophy, and digital humanities. They found their love of poetry through endless hours of reading and daydreaming as a child, and use it now to heal and process their trauma. When not in school or writing poetry, Tatymn can be found hiking, road tripping, creating art of all kinds, or laughing.