Speak
I don’t know how to speak,
Anymore
Random words billow under my skin
Like forcing me to serve your sentence
By taking all of mine away.
I’m left with words that have no meaning
Without you: worthless, random etches on a tree
They’re worth nothing anymore
I never had the gift in me
I couldn’t find it without you
That’s what you said, right?
Or was there, at a point,
a subtle exchange
When the way that letters left me changed, if addressed to you.
There was one marked moment
That I and all I had
Became Yours
But you?
Were you ever mine to mourn?
Is that when this became a war?
When I guess I let you own me, when I thought we were a team
We worked together, we understood
You had my back and I had yours
But my fingers are still bleeding from attempts to hold you safe,
I had to look at them to know they hurt, mangled by your violent collar.
Loose gravel from the edge branded my knees and shins,
Like my skin was as pliant as play dough,
Like I was made of clay.
Sweaty lips and teeth were pleading you bitter
While you fussed on the edge of that cliff
I could feel my words change again
For the first time my words wouldn’t bring you back-
You looked up at me and laughed and
With one motion you slashed
at the rest of the desperate that held you.
You,
Forcing my hand,
Collapsing the futile grip
I had on you, you looked up at me once more
Perhaps, a chance for me to say goodbye?
So I looked for you in your eyes
But all I saw was myself
Desperate and unanswered,
Your shell turned to dust in my hands.
I deflated in one hasty exhale.
I felt lullabies and all the things I hadn’t gotten to write yet
Escape from my remains with that final breath.
I didn’t get to hold them as I died
Instead I held pieces of the concrete and pieces of my own heart.
My skin has holes that I think you put there.
I can poke myself at certain angles and feel my skeleton.
Everyday I try to speak
Feel my throat fatten with the words that almost reach my tongue.
The words wallow in self pity as they claw at their gummy figures
Trying to solidify enough to loosen themselves from my hot and sticky sorrow.
They are melting away.
You abandoned them
You tricked me
