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Recommitence
(Originally Published in Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine)
I can’t speak to you in the way I used to
Because I don’t know how the words
Should come out and in my head they
Sound perfect even poetic but they dry on my
Tongue harsh fragments that grit against
My teeth and peel back my dry lips.
My mother taught me a superstition once,
That when your lips split down the middle desiccated
And your mouth tastes like metal and
You wake up, your cheeks aching,
Your jaw clenched from fighting
Against the medicinal lacquer that follows
Vague and incomprehensible nightmares,
That really the nightmares have surrendered
To a darker, more dangerous force,
Hellbent on reaping destruction inside your head.
So what I’m really fighting is some secret,
Some truth turned an irascible creature
Because at the end of the day a human lies to
Hide something and that creature I’m
Hiding is going to break free so I know that
I have to tell you but through my split lip…