you are written in knife on the lines of my hands
and the hands of my mother
your love falls through my fingers
like loose change from torn pockets
of the coat you bought me last fall.
your rage smothers me –
it is pressed leaves
from the maggot-sick tree
you cut down years ago,
traces of rotten meat left
to cling to the rusted grill
and birds left to decay
with molded and bloody wings
before you lit the woods on fire.
the mirror in my room
reflects the lines of your face
worried wrinkles are regrets
stretched through time
and I see myself there,
a blackened bird without wings,
flightless and chained to the ground.
By Olivia Lewis