Sandpaper Hymn

What is this feeling, hovering over

That follows me to bed

The coldest of fingers pressing my lips

The fist upon my head

Call me a liability from the start

I thought that I could bring you more than

The sum of our troubled parts

Lately I'm keeping just out of reach

Of friends who want to help me

I know they see me for what I am

And have no heart to tell me

I am the circularity of my father's speech

Flashes of a mother's rage at every water breach

If history's nothing more than the tales

We choose to tell ourselves

Then why've you discarded every page

Of things that I did well

Have a care what's coming out your mouth

Let condescending words be smoothed out

If every footfall is jarring our little frames

Then who will bend our stooping spines

Back to their proper shape

Maybe this famine hinges to feast

And nourish what has died

But you can't preserve me out in the cold

Just 'cause you won't decide

Would someone tell me my labor is complete

Or give a mathematics for the day to choose defeat

I swear to God, I'm learning to shut my mouth

That every splintered corner be sanded clean and round