#restinctio

People can change, she says,

Accusatory hope spitting into my face;

 We are flowers and we grow.

We are seasons and we pass.

We are concepts and we improve.

 But people are not colorful metaphors-

We are bones.

Our flesh above us bleeds with adjustment.

 And while we snap, while our marrow wilts,

We hold the same stubborn shape

And never fade completely.

 People bleed and break;

And race venemously down my tongue

Oh, I don’t listen to our songs anymore.

Not even the same

Genre.

Now I sing my own song

Cheerful and accompanied

By my many friendly

My words when whispered roll off like screams

I hate this

And I hate how my tongue betrays me

Is that what it is?

That’s all it could be

I’ve always been this way

My words don’t work I sound so strange

But you always hear me

Anyway

What happened

That you can’t

Listen?

 Every time I speak to you I shake.

I hate you

And I hate that you have this power

When you don’t care

For me.

Your words are fake

Was it always like this?

Or have I just

Become

He heard voices

That said to

Die,

Sometimes even

Kill.

But he wouldn’t listen

He’d slam his head

Against anything;

Tables, Chairs, Walls,

The Television, The bed, The floor.

They had to wrap him

In bubblewrap.

He’d beat his brain

Until the voices were

Gone-

Sometimes hours,

Sometimes more.

All he did was fight.

His bruises made a

Beautiful

Went to a high school

Near my house.

I duck down when I drive past.

Never seen her, but I

Shake

Her parents left her

For weeks on end,

And when they were there

They beat her senseless.

She had to live in

Juvenile

Instead.

But when they picked up the phone,

She wouldn’t let them

Leave

Until they had laughed