Penance

I hated you for your iron, cracking and slipping through my own disaster, weeping, engraving linoleum into my bones and joints and praying to stand but never having the heart. You shoved my face into the wall so many times- forcing my skin under your fingernails while you smiled- I began to think it was an embrace, shaking my head to shake you off and hoping you didn’t love me as much as you claimed. I dreamed of the day I could return the favor. Then you turned back. I already had my fists raised and curled around their handful of air, stretching the atmosphere taut while you covered your face. Unexpected fingers draped careless over your head, grieving and choking me into stillness -the lone candle wick before your sorrow- You sobbed from your own crumbling center- the kind I make when no one's listening. You felt for my mouth, and desecrated my lips into pillars of salt - the ones you mocked time and again for weakness. And maybe I deserved it, because I stood with tears in my eyes and fire in my veins and metal in my mouth. while the world wheeled beneath us. I stood downcast amidst the stars, and all the ashes of god and gomorrah, and mumbled to myself I don’t trust you. I can’t ever trust you.