i've watched him bleed emotions in the way he holds his beer;
like a lover too potent to choke down but not sweet enough to finish

he is the side effect of the phrase
"kids can be cruel"
and i've spent nights searching for a warning label tucked in between his ribs,
expecting to find her name under
"owners information,"
but he won't let me close enough to find it

he ***** like he wants to forget,
but I don't much mind because i'm just trying to remember,
remember what it's like to feel that the stars are something someone built for me in their garden shed
but i grew up believing nobody would ever fall in love with me,
and he's too busy dragging his feet across the bar to notice the way she looks at him

i can hear the faded tunes of children singing
"words will never hurt me,"
while we empty ourselves onto *** stained sheets
don't tell me that hurts less than a broken bone

i want to tell him that we are not stalled cars sitting abandoned on the highway,
and if in some way we are,
we only got out to walk and get gas
i want to tell him that this is just debris,
but he's already half way down the street,
substituting prayers for broken fingers and i can't run fast enough to put a cast around his broken wrists and sign it
*"THEY WERE WRONG"