In my weakness

I.

It is apparent, the breath you send after me

marked like morning dew, pearly like sweat

it comes off you without second thoughts

I can tell it is your only weapon, you are the first and the last man

standing

Weakness isn't your strongest feature, not one you'd admit to

don't hide it, it is sweet- you grow on me,

despite time weaving its claws into the folds of your face

I know you since birth

You will never admit you care for me,

You watch me, I feel it

the gaze that lands on my shoulders, yours unedited.

II.

I don't know if it is boredom or if it is your word

Be

your first, that becomes me

the human out of the details, add water

deduct salty tears, but raise enough space

for other body parts to grow like shrubs

save space for figures of speech

to line letters and create scenes that look

like the beginning, the middle and the end

of a long series of chapters, heading nowhere.

III.

Is that a bruise you ask?

is this a scar, tell me. You demand answers

to shapes I don't even notice myself

because I cannot look at my shoulder blades

when you can.

IV.

There's a voice in my head that repeats

what someone once told me:

I come from an ape, this ape was a fish

that was a cell at the bottom of the ocean

I might be fishy at times, but I am not hairy

nor senseless or am I?

cool me down like only you know, take off the masks I wear for my moments of weakness

cool me down, don't use spring water

use the sea

the tug of ebb and flow, the coarse salt and foam

For into me is all you know of life and a breath unhinged,

hanging by some thread cotton soft like the beard you developed

while you waited for me to mature, nine-months,

ninety-nine years to perfect

like pottery in the belly of a volcano

you wait, and I disappoint. I won't save you from losing the bits inside,

I won't tell you not to touch my apples

I will save you from counting more sheep and naming names for the animals

what's behind that voice that calls me an ape?

mistaken

he is

the one who says I am not born out of your left heart rib.

This poem was published first on Visual Verse. You can check it here: 

http://visualverse.org/submissions/weakness/