Let Others Pin

A yellow ribcage hums a steady rhythm,
Threading through the morning dust,
Pulling through the city’s rising heat,
Carrying secrets that happen only once.

I became the anchor of this swaying body,
Until I stumbled upon a silent island,
A place where the current sits still,
And even the leaves dare only to whisper.

The sky bruised slowly behind my shoulder,
A shared glance became a perceived theft.
Her world was a small and fiercely guarded,
Until my pride had to give in and kneel.

I knelt in the narrow aisle of her doubt,
To the place where ‘more’ feels like ‘less’,
A soft whisper lost in the bus’s static:
There is always room for one new more.

At last, a treaty was offered - a small plastic flower,
I bowed my head to the greatest badge I could carry,
And let her small, trembling hands clip her safety back into my own.

The engine roared, but the air went still,
A quiet realization in the hum of the commute,
That the loudest storms end in a single click,
And the heaviest days are lightened by what we let others pin.

- Hita Kalani
Learner at The Northstar School