In This Dark Hour

It is at this dark hour,
it is at this inferno,
it is in this block of rage
that I notice how stale I have become.

I am cracking,
in every fold of my skin and
in each dry bend of my skinny bones,
I become mosaic.

I did not read life properly, I think.
Big doors slammed on my little fingers
so many times and even
though they broke and ached,
I made them wrap themselves around
heavy door knobs and
step beyond explanation.

What is to understand?
Skies are a warning. Wind is creation.
We stirred life up together.
What is to understand?

Age is a gift and a curse.
The past sings me to sleep in
rough fusion, a symphony of screams
that shred my nights out before me.

I remember when she stood in front of the mirror,
red lips pursed deeply at my innocence and
my tremor. She terrified me more than
the thunder that rattled the world outside.

I chose the storms over her natured arms,
but I did not understand. I read her
wrinkles and her pores
and her treacherous explosions
as if they were life,

and now I have age to help me read,
but I am too old to understand.
My body is cracking under misunderstandings
and exposure.

I want the bright day back that I found
when I ran barefoot over boulders,
before boulders fell on top of the four
chambers of my life.
I want what was taken from me by the
thick chalk of her pursed lips.