The hardest parts of me
Need to softest touch of your love

The cracked corners of her spoken too many times mouth bent just far enough upward to be called a smile
Teeth yellow from a coping mechanism you can't quite understand yet
Holding back each breathe just enough
For it it were not for the power in her lungs I wouldn't be here

She says "Boy you just don't understand"

Four years later,
This jigsaw puzzle is slowly compiling itself into a fading picture
54 years of back breaking uphill climbs
Two children who are still on a search to become men
Zero men that deserved her heart
A single mother conquering the branded arms of poverty
Days weaving together begging for refuge
Finding empty responses

She is the shore being abused by the ocean
Never once asked consent for what the body of water has taken
Her framework eroding from view
She has given too much too fast and it will not be given back

Cancer has a funny way of taking something that does not belong to it
Ending stories before they are finished
Cutting to the credits earlier than expected
We are powerless power lines being controlled by the wind

Four year later I hear her saying
"Boy you just don't understand"
You are right mother
I still do not understand
Why you are not here

He told her

It is the beauty on the inside that counts

Her response

Then why do my insides continue to find themselves in the wrong place
Lifted into white porcelain gods
Asking anyone to compliment my withered self
Please make love to me
Tell me I am better than the acid on my tongue
The regret powering my mind as I struggle down my dinner
Inside is where I find these thoughts
Thoughts powering my actions
Into a spiraling pit of self loathing
Tell me I am pretty one more time
And I will show you my insides to prove it

Pressed between book ends and whiskey bottles
Our drunken breathe baited for affection
Wanting love to find ourselves
The unabridged version

We search glossary definitions looking for a respite of tainted
Cursively speaking alcoholic cacophonies
We rode the light energy of 5 in the morning
Leaving behind the pages of insecurities

That night we confessed the unthinkable
Begging for our names to written in the manifest of history
Wanting nothing more than to be each others sunrise
Slurring our last names into one, till death do us part

Most times you will find me silent.
Unwilling to put the thoughts into sentences.
But I promise you;
I will return.

Step by step,
Piece by piece,
We will examine each one on it's own.

We'll lighten the darkness a little,
And make it a more pleasant view.

Imagination I leave for you to decide what to do with.

The sand mustn't worry
for the wave will always return