tyrants

hold on to me hold on to my pride

i wear all my old pains in my skin. sewn across my bones, stitched by untender hands, in coarse threads bleeding at their seams
i think it started when i saw your hair clasp at the dying light...fading embers casting your eyes red. and you were younger and whole-er back then. with laughter that was wrenched from your very roots – and i had thought you'd seen my soul and known it was yours. or maybe it began. my reckoning. with the curl of your voice or the curve of your hip pressing into my. scabbed over palms. hands holding the same callouses i hid in my eyes
my tongue is swollen and heavy in my throat and i. want to try to tear it out. learn how to hide my fires the way stars do —