The Poetry Collection [Editing]

42. Youth ✨️

Cigarettes, piss stains, and coffee tar lungs
Remnants from my high life
Before the summers churned and my bones cracked
Before I shed so much salt from my eyes

I remember his leather couch
Counting the grey hairs on my father's head
As he told me, "Each one of those is from every time you hit me."
I'd give him a four year old punch for good measure

The pastel on the sidewalk and earth pine scent
Jumping the ditch when we got in trouble
Crawling up the stairs when too tired to walk
Only things from my childhood brain

Purple arched across my knee
Another scrape, a few tears
But the yellow and red across my cheek
Stored in the recesses of youth once forgotten

I hear big girls don't cry, but age is just a number
Bricked up in my loss of memory mind
The tears don't start until I know
The fight was taken from the kid.