He speaks in  splatters  of speech
In a voice that resembles a man
I once loved before
His words dissolve into the walls
Crack his jaw and shatter his teeth
All while trying to hold his bones in place
And stop the wounds from leaking out

His hands are getting weaker by the drink
And the violence is only getting worse

But beneath his twisted tongue
And inside his clenching fists
Weeps a man
that cradles
in his fear
A man that cowers in the dark
Stretching desperate arms across my sheets

I took hold of his limber spine
And shifted his nerves back into place
I took his face into my palms
And planted a kiss upon each cheek

Held him close up to my chest
Until the mere feel of my skin
Became the scent of his

I sleep beside a broken man
The kind that shivers in the silence
And I stitch him back up
every day at midnight
Hoping I will awaken to a body
bound together by my touch