Your voice travels into my head, and echoes against my skull

My head shatters like a broken vase; it falls to the floor

along with my body, I drop.

Your screams melt the skin off my bones, and I sit,

and let myself form a puddle at your feet.

Maybe I’d listen better if I were a puddle.

You clamor at me as I run to find my brain,

to collect the thoughts I’ve lost,

and the ones I don’t understand.

Maybe if your voice were softer, I’d have more time.

More time to sort through my memories

and put them together like pieces of a puzzle.

Yet one word is too loud, and it all falls apart.

The work crumbles into my hands, along with my soul.

And when things feel calm, and I feel still,

one wrong move from me; it’s stripped from my hands.

It hurts worse when you feel safe.

Only to be proven wrong; there is no stillness.

The waves that travel through the air between us

will get shaken and turned into daggers.

Those daggers will pierce my skin like a needle to fabric.

So quickly, I will break, so fragile, so soft.

A glass statue that is too weak to support itself,

even the slightest echo can destroy the piece.

That’s what your screams feel like to me.

Like weapons, they are; like weapons, they always are.

And as I tape the glass back into my skin,

walking, I remind myself of love and loyalty.

I will patch up my body for this bond.

I take the bones I have to build a bridge

one that I can cross to you.

Yet, once I reach you, you’ll yell.

And like a vase, my head will shatter.

And my skin will melt into a puddle near your feet.

But I’d listen better if I were a puddle,

right?