You could carry all your pain inside the nerves
in your tongue like such lines are suitcases
with just the right proportions.

Vertical lines always did create the illusion of symmetry.

If your pain found its home in the part of your body
that longs to be used in the verbal explanation of what it holds,
maybe your tongue would learn to create more than it deconstructs.

You wore streaks of grey sky like a costume
that did very little to conceal what lay beneath.
Maybe you thought if you wore it long enough it would
act as an extra layer of skin,
another stratification to separate you from your deepest self.

When they taught us how to laugh we never questioned
if we would grow up to be happy.
It was always something we were sure of when our minds were clouded
in a shroud of naive hope.

Now years have passed and we have learned
how to whistle wishes into the harmonicas of our necks
and wish for a better melody.


- m. b. 2014