Shatter Season

I am the fragile man again.  

I thought
I had changed,
clothed myself
in thick, real confidence
and genuine certainty

but all it took
was one small choice —
I opened a door, found a dim corridor,
walked its length and emerged
into a courtyard of thorns
where I stopped, afraid to move
for all the possible pain.
I turned to go back
to the last place, the good place; no,
that door and hallway
were nowhere to be seen

but there were
my worn bed and my sad desk
covered in endless pages
of vague directions,
my dried flower dust catchers,
my wrong-facing windows
as unchanged and dirty
as the last time I’d seen them,
I could hear the rain of stones
not far away and
coming nearer.

I slumped down at the desk,
the fragile man again;
again unsheltered, waiting for 
another shatter season
to begin.