Aching like broken backs on beasts of burden, or perhaps the over-confident wrists of unsuccessful surgeons.

Heavier than the hearts of ex-lovers who are still hurting, more calloused than the splintered fingers of soldiers no longer serving.

Preyed on but never self-pitying, like idle hands no longer earning.

Thicker than a theatre's final curtains.

Oh, how it burns like my throat when it first tasted bourbon.

It is the fraying thread of fickle turbans, and also acquired skills, as they're emerging, like new languages that we're still learning.

Regardless of the fruit it bears, there is one thing of which I'm certain; vulnerability's seeds grow differently in all our gardens.