Becoming the Black Hole

Stay still.

Left hand full, utilize the right. Fill them both until the weight of others sifts out from in between your fingers and falls like oil to your feet.

Do not move.

Offer up your shoulders. The ones that carried the trauma of your mother and the resentment of your father, the expectations of the world. They are so strong. You're so strong. It's expected.

Like the coat hanger at the entrance of your aunt's house as it toppled from the weight of too many snow-packed winter jackets that one Christmas Eve.

Feel the pop of capillaries and the crack of joints under their weight.

Remember, do not move.

Eventually, and as expected, your ribs will collapse on themselves one after the other like the bamboo blinds drawn in your grandmother's living room.

Where you sat so patiently and watched her stitch, stitch, stitch your favorite sweater.

So still. Still, so utilized. The only remedy is to go in, go under, and collapse from the weight of it all.

Until you are a black hole that repels them, avoiding your orbit lest they get sucked into the void they created.