“Deep Dive No. 1” © Bonnie Matthews Brock

 

She Fell Apart Slowly

I’ve left a trail behind me.
What a mess I’ve left!
Look at all these fragments of dazzling girl
sparkling on the ground.

There was a time I picked up the shards as they fell,
cutting my fingers as I tried to fit them back into place,
to continue the illusion I was whole.
But the pieces wouldn’t stay.
I tried and I bled and I smiled in vain.

All the little bits have created a glittering shadow of me.
I listened to the gentle sounds the pieces made as they hit the ground
and I walked onward without them.
I will be far from whole when I reach my destination.
I will no longer be the girl echoing with shining glory,
but a dull and muted memory of a once stunning being.

 

Tinamarie Cox resides in Northern Arizona with her husband and two children. While she has devoted much of her time over the years to her family, she currently seeks to expand her universe by rekindling her love of writing.

Bonnie Matthews Brock is a Florida-based photographer, as well as school psychologist. She enjoys capturing raw single-capture photos of a wide variety of subjects, and learning and experimenting with shooting techniques such as long-exposure and intentional camera movement, as well as with editing methods. You can find Bonnie’s images on the covers of publications such as Ibbetson Street, Poesy Magazine, and Wild Roof Journal, and on the pages of Oddball Magazine, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Ember Chasm Review, Beaver Magazine, and Unstamatic. Her works are archived at institutions such as Poets House NYC, Brown University, University of Buffalo, and Harvard University.