Boundaries

The man in front of me is a broken one, and my fingers are drowning in dripping glue, in cement, in something meant to hold things To hold him To hold myself and others together. Yet he binds himself with puppet strings, scotch tape, and the wet breath of drugs. Batting at my outstretched Hands Dodging the warmth of a true touch, He flinches. He bleeds- visibly and he screams from a starlight-lost, daydream-blinded face that I am wrong. He shoves daggers into my seams, prying at my wounds. Burning red and pulsing in purple bruise Image of a warrior turned blue. while leaking he bursts open. Pain seeping into my sobbing mouth From his unstitched scars So easy to tear. He rips with his own hands At the both of us When he does not cover his ears and turn his back To cradle in a seething silence Clutching with razor blade hands the child, The pained, Chained, caged pet he swallows with every breath as if I cannot See the lump in his throat Or feel the kicking in his chest. But I am a mountain, capped in the blood of a hundred storms, and I will not cave.