Landmine, by Madison Askin

Landmine

You are like a landmine,

I’m trying not to set you off.

Choking from the inside

out, on the smoke that I cough.

I don’t know where you lie.

Tiptoeing over your pillowy grass

with the sunken sun of hot July

knowing we’ve reached an impasse.

Now the skies are gloomy gray.

The sun is hidden by clouds,

the dull color of the ash in a tray.

You and I left in a shroud.

I’ll crawl into your bed and burrow under your covers. I’ll be your little secret, so quiet and so afraid. You’re killing me.

I can’t stop thinking What’s the point? When I stop speaking It’s myself I disappoint. When I stop texting,

Words are like art. Reading the text on a page and wishing I could write like tha… like words that spill from my pen come so naturally and

I have no way, no escape to calm their suspicions. I feel them looking, seeking,

How fragile are you, I’m so reckless. You let me past your iron bars and I gave you more scars. But you hurt me, too.

God, I think you’re there, but at home in my bed alone, it’s hard to know that you hear. I want to believe that you care,

I like you better when I don’t like you. As gray as the weather, Cloudier as the hours grew. My heart coming in letters

The sullen piano notes of the broken hearted folks ring and never stop ringing. The sound fades, but it still plays.

Wings set hard, laying on the tile floor. Dead moth in the stairwell. Figures pass by; shadows bounce off