scar

noun

1. my body shudders at the thought of laying itself bare to another stranger

2. I hate when I’m asked where I come from. What do you want me to say? I come from the beaten and bruised, broken hearts and empty promises. From the midnight tv screen, hiding under the covers, watching as those maricones, culeros, puercos transform into beautiful woman before my eyes. I'm one of the puercos too, my father knows, my mother knows.

3. make the first incision along the sternum, large enough to allow your calloused hands passage into these crimson walls. carefully, reach inside and remove the faintly fluttering beast from its cage of bones. feel as the diseased flesh begins to heal under your touch. they say the heart can recognize when it has found its way back home.

4. it is your blood that runs through my veins, your whispering breath that flows through my lungs, my thoughts of you consume me.

Clockwork

noun

1. I stand here as nothing more but a head of misplaced gears.

2. sometimes i stumble and trip and fall and my feet get caught in trying to keep up with the world as it keeps spinning and i can't help but to keep spinning with it no matter how much i beg and plead and pray and hope for another chance to land on my feet, and i can’t stop spinning, i can’t stop spinning, i can’t stop spinning, i can’t stop, stop spinning
  
3. with each passing hour I find another reason to fear the dark. it’s midnight, and I can see the fluttering wings of doubt and regret that lurk outside my window every night. tick-tock. my father’s pounding footsteps and the creaking of stairs sing a symphony of disappointment. tick-tock. the beast in the closet claws at the door, with his raspy breath he screeches about taking my skin and wearing it as his own. tick-tock. the shadow underneath my bed caresses my head, it knows He doesn’t listen to my pleas anymore. tick-tock.

4. but you can’t stop it, it’s inevitable for the gears to rust. the ticking of the clock slows to nothing but a cold metallic silence. watch the decay, as the termites feast and revel in your maplewood walls. try to remember that dust to dust and we are nothing but atoms of carbon and iron. that’s clockwork.