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It Is All Equally Fragile

by Alison Malee

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About the book

It Is All Equally Fragile is a peek into the fragility of our everyday moments. A delve into the hope that can bloom or wither depending on how it is held. A wide tooth comb through the muss of our intimate realities as women, lovers, friends, and mothers.

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Meet The Author

Alison Malee

Alison Malee is a poet, artist, author, and performer. Her poetry collections, Shifting Bone, The Day Is Ready For You, This Is The Journey, and It Is All Equally Fragile, are about expression, family, femininity, and the possibility that exists within us.

Read a sample of It Is All Equally Fragile

A sample of It Is All Equally Fragile

It Is All Equally Fragile

Alison Malee

Thought Catalog Books — thoughtcatalog.com

Black-and-white illustration of a snake winding through flowering stems, with a butterfly above. The title and author are transcribed above.

Copyright © 2024 Alison Malee.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior written consent and permission from Thought Catalog.

Published by Thought Catalog Books, an imprint of Thought Catalog, a digital magazine owned and operated by The Thought & Expression Co. Inc., an independent media organization founded in 2010 and based in the United States of America. For stocking inquiries, contact stockists@shopcatalog.com.

Produced by Chris Lavergne and Noelle Beams
Designed and illustrated by KJ Parish
Circulation management by Isidoros Karamitopoulos

thoughtcatalog.com | shopcatalog.com

First Edition, Limited Edition Pressing
Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-949759-80-8

Contents

  • I — page 9
  • II — page 41
  • III — page 73
  • IV — page 107

I have loved and been loved,
and it is all equally fragile.

A snake lifts its head toward a dandelion, with loose seeds drifting around it. The two-line verse above the illustration is transcribed above.

A collection of ordinary, fragile moments.

I

If I am to tell a story, let it be an honest one.
Let it pour from me freely and without hesitation.
Let it be, amongst other things, a lighthouse.

Gasoline, Regular

Right when I believed myself invincible,
I fell in love. Only diesel at the gas station,
green pumps for miles. Sneakers at a dance club.
Heels on the couch, shoulders shimmying. Never
a dull knife, never a sharp knife, never a knife at all.
Everything cut with scissors. Everything dug
up with feet. Symphonies of layered bass drums.
Snares welcome. In December, drawer after drawer
of tank tops. In July, thick wool. Cashmere. Flannel.
Ask me of current events, or take this flower
from my garden, they are the same. Love
leaks from me. I am flammable now, by definition.

I Keep This Vision

For a time after my daughter’s birthday, we raised
caterpillars from a clear, plastic jar. We observed,
as good scientists do. In between coffee and
schedules, it’s own form of spiritual ritual.

Their squirming bodies. Their cocoons
shivering with movement. Muddled and sticky
in their habitat, base insects scrounging about
as base insects do.

Then, one day, our home was filled with the sound of unrest,
butterflies emerging all at once, orange, red, spotted,
pulsing with new need.

That night, my daughter, all of seven years,
held the cage open with quivering, small hands,
shuffling from foot to foot as anticipation held her close.

The sky had gone gray and unremarkable,
and yet we waited for each one
to discover a path to the top and take flight.

I keep this vision; her eyes fixed on a pair of velvet wings.
An artist, or a mother’s tender pleasure
growing in the corners—so insistent that miracles exist
it bubbled up from her chest and spilled over.

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