They whispered I was made to hold the grief,
to swallow every sorrow as my own,
so from my flesh a thousand arms found leaf—
I grew them so no cry would go unknown.

I reached toward the ones the world had torn,
the shaking child, the widow wrapped in black,
I gathered them like flowers from the thorn
and ignored what my giving would not give back.

But giving is a hunger never filled—
the more I reached, the more they grew to need,
until my pulse grew quiet, then grew stilled:
a well run dry, and still they came to feed.

So ache took root where taking grew to greed,
and fed on every hollow left in me—
I felt cold absence consecrate its seed
and thread dark tendrils where the man should be.

My skin grew taut and strange, a hardening bark,
my ribs began their patient twist through soil—
I stood there rooted, trembling in the dark,
while something in my marrow learned to spoil.

The hollow spread from heartwood to the bone,
they knelt beneath my arms and called it grace,
while I screamed on in frequencies unknown—
they only saw the branches, not my face.

I cannot find the face I used to wear,
these hands are mine but reach beyond my will—
I am the giving and the taker’s snare,
the scream inside the hollow, ringing still.

They touch my bark and say they feel at peace,
they press their foreheads to my hollow chest—
while I remain the ache that cannot cease:
the altar where they lay their need to rest.