Why She Disappeared [Poem] [Dutch translation]

When she fell, she fell apart.

Cracked her bones on the pavement she once decorated

as a child with sidewalk chalk

When she crashed, her clothes disintegrated and blew away

with the winds that took all of her fair-weather friends

When she looked around, her skin was spattered with ink

forming the words of a thousand voices

Echoes she heard even in her sleep:

"Whatever you say, it is not right."

"Whatever you do, it is not enough."

"Your kindness is fake."

"Your pain is manipulative."

When she lay there on the ground,

She dreamed of time machines and revenge

and a love that was really something,

Not just the idea of something.

When she finally rose, she rose slowly

Avoiding old haunts and sidestepping shiny pennies

Wary of phone calls and promises,

Charmers, dandies and get-love-quick-schemes

When she stood, she stood with a desolate knowingness

Waded out into the dark, wild ocean up to her neck

Bathed in her brokenness

Said a prayer of gratitude for each chink in the armor

she never knew she needed

Standing broad-shouldered next to her

was a love that was really something,

not just the idea of something.

When she turned to go home,

She heard the echoes of new words

"May your heart remain breakable

But never by the same hand twice"

And even louder:

"without your past,

you could never have arrived-

so wondrously and brutally,

By design or some violent, exquisite happenstance

...here."

And in the death of her reputation,

She felt truly alive.