There's a scar
across the fingers on your left hand.
You remember the radiator
beneath the window
in the house on 2nd and Bell View.
No matter how many times Mother told you,
"Don't touch, you'll get burnt!"
You'd insist on making that reach.

There's a scar
deep inside your chest.
You remember the face,
the body beneath the shared covers
in your bed that past winter.
No matter how many times Mother told you,
"Don't touch, you'll get burnt!"
You insisted on reaching.

Last night I cut a hole along my hips
to try and remove the 10-year-old-stain.
Your skin regenerates every 27 days.
What a comfort that has been.
Yet your touch has seeped through the surface
and has sprouted roots inside my body.
Like a cancer, it grows.
Stretching and grabbing.
Devouring and swallowing up
the only thing I can call my own.
A sacred place, an area less than.

I cut a hole along my chest and opened up my ribcage.
Another place you left your mark.
Remove the point of disease and the disease will cease to exist.
I ripped and tore and thrashed away.
The muscle left weak but still beating.
Breathless and shaking I realized,
your roots continued to grow.

I cut a hole along the palm of my hand.
The hand I used to grab yours.
The hand I entrusted to you.
The hand that failed me.
The hand that saved me.
And what a sick irony that has been.
I separated the tendons, the ligaments from the muscle.
I looked for you between my fingers and under my nails.
The entire thing was tainted black.
Useless to me now, without former or future purpose.

I cut a hole along my neck.
The voice that abandoned my resides here.
I made a small puncture and drained it out.
But the infection wouldn't stop flowing.
It was no longer my voice, but yours that spilled from me.
It was endless, deep, thick and violent.
It felt warm like you.
And then cold again.

Defeated, last night, I cut holes.

The second hand a rapier
The hour hand, a longsword
And the minutes are my claymore
Armored with the twelve as I push forward
The face is the shield
The gears inside by my command spin or yield
My arsenal is time itself, ticking as I walk
Slaying all of my fears with each sound of a tock
The seconds are my soldiers, loyal and true
The hours are my guardians, great, but few
The moments are precious, hold them dear
Time is the ultimate force, weild it to control eternity
Take control of your destiny
Reinforceing dreams considerably
There is a person and future for which I weild tick and tock
And I have the aid and power of an ever revolving clock

Another day of anguished waiting
My earthly life, now put on hold
Another day, that I am hating
Of my death, I have been told

My life is now an hour glass
My days, those grains of sand
Veiled by tears, I watch them pass    
As I am funneled, to my end

I cannot slow or stop the flow
Each grain, thus bleeds my heart
All earthly things, I should let go
But I'm yet, not ready to depart
  
My sorrow strikes like lightning
Piercing bolts of what’s to come
My doubts and fears keep heightening
Until deaths hand does me succumb

In this world, I’m just a speck
My life, sifting into death
As that last grain, slips past the neck
I’ll take my final breathe

I wonder if, I’ll fly on wings
Or be prodded by a scythe
Will my remorse, then save my soul
When I am forced, to leave this life
BOEMS BY JA 498