You gave me everything

If everything is bitterness

Which is what you gave to me

Fondled my heart

With careless, blistered hands.

Because love is harder to come by

Because righteousness is what you claim

And sanity is yellow lace

Wrapped around my neck

Because you couldn’t even afford a rope

For the death you’re giving me

Devotion declared

When you find the hands

Broken before you.

Skin me clean of who I was

Because it’s what you do

But hold your coat tighter

Against this ghostly wind

And ignore my voice that begs

for you just to listen

Delicately finger the paper trees

And take your scissors out

To cut me apart

Just tell me who to be

To please you

Because all I can give you is one more score

One more point on that board

That makes you feel you’ve accomplished

What God gave you to do.

Even though I am no more

Then a shell

Harboring everything you told me to hide

Because life is about appearance

And nothing, nothing more.

My childhood is buried there
In the dusty red soil

Forgotten ribs
Deep in the ground
Made for music,
But now they will never make a single sound

I practiced each night
To spell those words
That would bring me to my future
Or so they told me

I was naïve
And I was scared
So I picked the flowers
And laid them there
In words like love, and happiness
To earn a point or two for you
But the tally boards ignored
When accusations are believed

And Satan lives in all of us
But you just didn’t see
Or maybe it was care
Enough to really know what happened