The raindrops melt the windows holding me back,
dissolve the scars still bleeding beneath my tongue.
With this sea in my stomach,
my words boil over into my eyes.
My stone-temple ribcage cracks
beneath the feet of the oak trees
grown through my chest.
There's no way my tin-can heart can take it.
There's no way I can stand the
metallic cries that echo in my ribcage, drippings of an empty bottle heart encased in stone.
drops that pour into my veins and stain my lips
with the words bitten back by the wolves that live in the back of my mind;
wolves that bind my lips to my feet;
so it seems that I always taste shoe leather and embarrassment.
Replay kisses on the feet marked with the bruises on my chin,
knowing my own lack of speech has stained my mouth and their feet,
and the reason my psyche is black and blue lies in my silence;
lies in the dust in the back of my throat.
You know I still wonder why my poetry always tastes like vinegar
and self-loathing.
I still wonder why my pulse screams in my ears.
I struggle with the lies drowning my poetry in asphalt.
Struggle with the reason I think lipstick stains
on the rim of a coffee cup
are beautiful.
It's the whispers in the pit of my stomach every time
I witness reds and oranges stain
melting snow with the light of a dying star.
It's the sugar that coats the back of my throat
with scalding memories
It's the smell of fifty-year-old dictionaries in the back of a thrift shop.
It's the tragedy that makes the shotgun-red cardinal stand out
against the icy branches of an early winter morning
when the coffee still clings to my breath.
It's why I take photographs.
Because the glint of light through a butterfly's wing will never look the same. Because my lips are stained with purple ink and my poetry is only the lingering kiss of God tattooing 'Beloved' on my feet.
Because when my children's children dig up the filmy remains of my heart in bomb shelter attics filled with cardboard boxes,
I want them to remember that it wasn't about
holding boxing glove fists in the air the second your eyes shot open every morning,
it was about the scars that painted my open palms,
awaiting yet another surprise in my tin-man march to re-discover wonder.
It wasn't about leaving behind a piece of myself-
it was about leaving behind a piece of my world,
a chalk-smeared kiss on the sidewalk,
a notebook filled with the musings of a teenager,
it's about that little piece of me that bleeds through my pen,
leaving a little bit of my memory on the page every time I write a poem.
It's about the hope that leaks through my fingertips that someday, someone will ask, "Why is everything so beautiful?", and I will be able to answer them.