Knives Poem by Maya Hanson

I am trying not to hurt you with these knives I hold.
I have such horrible aim.

I am trying not to pull you off the track you laid.
I keep hallucinating the train coming.

I am trying not to take over your brain like a tumor.
I keep thinking about you until I'm stuck in your head.

I am trying not to cry as hard as I know you need to.
I am a river and I keep needing your skin like a drought.

I think the tears of this hunter
are as wet as the tears of the hunted,
and just as bitter.

I can sell sweet
but I have never been honey with this fast-paced flood,
words that can cut like tripping,
love that I can laugh with you
but it might just mean the blades are sharpening.

When I'm drowning in trusting you I am still holding knives.
This is the only thing that makes me a truth teller.

But when I look at you I turn pink with promises,
I only want to stay here four seasons of the year,
maybe more.

When I look at you I can only see
the countless hands that must have built this beautiful,
not the hammers I bring with me to cave it in,
please close my eyes for me
so I can know it again,
that my tools are not the kind that build.

Mouth open so I can spill my cracks into yours,
maybe here two wrongs make a right,
I hope you love to choke
because when I am living on the way you taste
that is all I can give you.

Breathe the scorch and all I can feel
is just how sharp these hands are.

I am trying not to hurt you with these knives I hold.
I have such horrible aim.