I Can'T Breathe

I’m kind of having trouble breathing It could be the binder or The knives I threw at the wall. I know I didn’t throw them with my lungs But the thought of the holes in the plaster Grips my chest in the grip of disaster And I can’t breathe. In the caverns of my air sacs there’s something starting to grow: my mother’s roses. They’re pretty, I know but you can’t put coils of thorns in my throat and ask me to humor you. Every rose I will cough up Will be like a punch in the gut; if you squint you will be able to see a constellation in the blue by my diaphragm. Yes, for your eyes I can grow roses Out of the tissues of my lungs But I’m having trouble breathing And it isn’t the binder I can’t help that I’m finding outlines of Faces in the plaster. You’ve taught your rose bush to grow knives And when I see the holes of your eyes in the wall I can’t breathe.