I was born a canvas covered picture frame
My teachers sanded down my edges
Not knowing that it would mean I could never be cornered
So the paint always spilled off my sides
Making sporadic sputtering acrylic spit stains when I opened my mouth for speech
I never knew to protect my heart so I let my colors bleed
So
Most of my childhood was spent playing near cemeteries
And trying my best to avoid talking with strangers
My pockets filled with quarters and always in hopes of buying my friends thoughts
and
My teenage years were consumed by death metal records in my friends car
and getting punched by men 5 years older than me in garages filled with kids that wore shirts that didn’t fit correctly,
learning how verses not only get written on a page but also become etched on your heart
but
I’m older now
I planted a flower bed in my chest
and waited for the rain
But it beat hard enough to wash the gullies out
So the soil ran down my legs
My bare feet darkened and stained
the roots lay bare inside my chest
a fire napping inside my conscious
Laughing softly as each drop of rain kissed its red flecked skin
My calloused vellum hands lay in wait unwritten by my sides
My eyes stand perched like peering vultures from the caverns of my mind
Because
I’ve been whittling guilt from black cloud promises
and trying my best to hammer out silver linings
With caution tipped fists, swollen blue reminders of what happens
when hesitation rears its head and fear wins
I'm tired of
demons waking me weekly before my alarm rings
I have enough ghost hunts I need to learn to stop chasing while laying in a borrowed bed
So
I put on a brave face that I chiseled with shaky hands because
I’ve taken a lot of disappointment lately and
I’m finding truth in the weight of friends hands on my shoulders
When the arch of my back bridges sorrow and joy with each shallow breath I take
My heart cries anarchy because I’ve seen greed trap young women in
windowed cages wearing less for men that will pay more when the curtains close
I only imagined their pain as I biked by them everyday on my way to work
But I still can’t help thinking that it’s all my fault
Why didn't I smash the windows, set the captives free
Why didn't I do what had been done for me?
The canals where the girls worked were filled with swans that floated among the garbage
And the neon signs of sex shows made the birds look like phosphor winged demons or broken angels
But the crowds of men looking for a hour glass figure to hide their loneliness and the women clutching cameras and overstuffed purses barely noticed them
While my friend Jimmy froze on the streets at night
laying by the bike paths like broken teeth too fractured to be set back in their rightful place
They walked by deaf while Mary plucked the violin strings I gave her in November, her whispered words nodding in agreement
to the wolves that sat in her head content in feasting on her heart
And these things make me no longer afraid travel roads without markers or to take walks after dark
because I see now
that the eyes are the color spectrum of the soul
and so many people have pupils that are shades of gray,
the colors never change no matter how colorful their speech
Which has made me learn to
fashion my words as ropes and set my thoughts firm like boards
To build bridges between cynicism and desires for scarred hearts
I wish my hands were set as hot brands lined with the stories of the weaker than
That they would lick hungrily for unwitting palms to declare that they have value
So every handshake would mean something
I just want this all to mean something
because my throat grows tired
Of coughing with sawdust lungs which makes my chest rattle lonely song
with sinew heartstrings fickle notes
lifting my voice octaves higher than it was suppose to go
And it all just keeps getting caught in my throat
But my Father keeps promising an easy yoke
I have to remind myself that it’s good, that it’s grace
He’ll let me bend but never break
I keep pouring myself out like a cistern
Until my bottom is scraped
I keep waiting to be filled.............
And I keep waiting to be filled.
But silence never fills the cracks
and I cannot find what I've always lacked
So I stand knocking on my God’s door
I know, I know He’ll answer.