Heavy Shoulders Poem by Maya Hanson

Press into my shoulders
those daggers of glass
I love how they sting my skin
so I can bleed out the world
So I build a glittering layer and
keep the world at bay
turn the deepest secrets inside out

Lay your love on me like a blanket
when I'm shivering with fever
Give me the illusion
that I'm dipped in your warmth
not wrapped in a snow globe

Spit on me till it's tainted
with your past and my bruises
and racing down the railroad tracks
to nothing

My heavy shoulders sing with sorrow
and hide with every sigh
under blooming battle scars from the wicked game
Bruises I used to brag about
until I faced these storms and
I'm on the path back home

My heavy shoulders are weighted,
draped with all the liars in the world
that are smashed into dust and
woven into the blanket of your love

Now I'm on the path back home,
breathing out promises
Something pulls at the edges of my smile
and the words I wrote but left unsaid
watch from the end of the road
as I turn the corner

They see all that's left of me,
your blanket tossed off my heavy shoulders,
those daggers of glass splattered with
blood disguised as stardust

and I'm gone with a pile of bruised mismatched memories,
a shriek of freedom,
a shatter that breaks the sky.