At least not with band-aids and
"make-it-better" kisses.
Don't try.
- powerful opening, to state right away that this pain you feel is not easily healed and although people might try in vain to make it better, they do not realise how deep it is and how much it cannot be mended.
It's not like I'm six years old
and fell off my bike. It's more
like I'm thirty-six and I fell
off my life and the injury
sustained was way more
than a scraped-knee.
- This is a great metaphor to compare the pain you feel against what people are treating it like, as if a hug and a biscuit will make it go away. Falling off life, this is so strong to use and describes how you feel. Like verything has stopped for you although the world is still moving so you lose your balance and fall off.
I'm a big girl, I'll handle it.
- this line being on its own is very strong. It actually made me think of your previous poem and how you have had to deal with things on your own and block out the world from what you feel. And so thus being learned at an early age is the only way you know how to cope - alone.
I'll do what I can to gather
what's left of me and ride off
into the unknown, brushing the
tears from my cheek bones...
- To me, the unkown here is the future, like you will do your best to get through today for tomorrow to come but you have no idea what tomorrow will hold or what it will be like. Never the less you get up and carry on for the sake of others, not for yourself. This shows how strong you are despite the pain tearing you apart inside.
And hope that some where along
the way you bring novocaine
kisses and duct tape.
- tragic way to end the poem because you just want it all to end, to stop the pain and the damage. To escape from it all. As sad as it is, I do like the way you have used the drug into kisses, like the kiss that would make you feel better and comfort you would actually end it for you and make you numb to feeling anything. Very clever.