Audrey Howitt

I tape over my cracked edges.
The memories
the smells
the wanting
what I can’t have. There is always that.
A hole I can’t fill
that pulls those edges apart.
And every day, I sit in it
let it unfold me, just under the skin
until the angles need mending again.
I tell them it will be ok,
that they will see the sun
the sky
the water
even when the wind blows me open
against my outer walls.
It is who I am right now.
All I know is this widening chasm
and the hope that the tape in this tiny drawer
will be enough.

Audrey Howitt lives and writes poetry in the San Francisco Bay Area. When not writing, she sings opera and teaches voice. She is also a licensed attorney and a licensed marriage and family therapist. Ms. Howitt has been published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Washington Square Review, Panoply, Hecate Magazine, Spillwords Press, Nymphs Poetry Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Big Windows Review, The White Cresset Arts Journal, Total Eclipse Poetry and Prose, Chiaroscuro—Darkness and Light, dVerse Poets Anthology, With Painted Words, Algebra of Owls, and Lost Towers Publications.

This poem appeared in What We Hold On To: Poems of Coping, Connection, and Carrying On — Winter 2026, published by The Chaos Section Poetry Project. We’ll be featuring each poem from the collection individually in the weeks ahead. You can read the full collection or download a free PDF of the chapbook here.