Benjamin Varenikovich Poet Free verse

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.

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