When you break a bone badly, and it mends,
but does not meld exactly, is not flush
one part to another,
you break it again, or let it
be broken for you,
because you trust, and accept,
it must be re-set.

You break open a wound, or let it be broken
open, if the wound turns red
and radiates heat and infection
runs rampant     You allow it because
you trust, and accept,
it must be cleaned and re-closed.

You break open your mind when
it bursts already—“positive disintegration”
they used to call it—but now they want you
to get back to work in five days
with your polished coping
skills, a different mindset.

When your spirit cries out in anguish
and you cannot see the light
and darkness draws you in,
you want to rend the darkness
thinking it has swallowed the light.
It gets so hard to trust
that darkness and light are
one, and need not be torn apart.

Are there spirit bone doctors?

©

Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after a rewarding career in public health research. With a graduate degree from Howard University, in the past six years he’s published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and photography in over 150 journals and anthologies on four continents. Publications include 580 Split, Bombay Gin, Barren, Columbia Journal, Ilanot Review, Kestrel, Litro, Lunch Ticket, New World Writing, Stonecoast, The Atlantic, The Manchester Review, and Typehouse, with Hippocampus forthcoming. A nonfiction piece led to a role in a documentary limited series for broadcast via BBC and other networks. Jim and his wife—parents of two health professionals on the front lines and grandparents of five preschoolers—split their time between city and mountains.