Bred Rotten In Our Gut

I don’t know when things got so bad,

the wallpaper so torn,

probably in those wild months of nothing but noise

and hollow wind between my ears

we were building inside burning houses

and wondered why our lungs were full of smoke

I remember the first time you spoke to me in a way

not even a parents anger could touch

I don’t care for that much now,

other than the tissue that’s formed around those words,

but I do think about how things would be different if I stepped back then

If I would have seen the red line that was crossed,

knowing it would lead to a bloody dance,

and not the kind of passion

but the kind of pain

I wonder if I would have sent you home rather than left you to come find me

again and again

if things would be different for me now

I remember the first time my voice,

caught in anger’s wind,

thrown at you,

I don’t even remember why,

I didn’t think much of it,

it seemed the natural response,

this time the red line crossing was mine

The dance continued,

as pulped as ever,

never ceasing not even for air

and it was strange,

how laced with beauty and compassion

and hands held into the unknown

Fighting for and with each other,

the victory and the anger equal and ill-fitting,

seemed to be handed down from times long forgotten,

bred rotten in our gut

The tension building until the wind took over,

nothing left inside but that storm,

uprooting everything and leaving dampened soil,

bloodied hands

and raw raw raw faces,

I couldn’t feel a thing