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