Alarm Clock

There is an alarm clock in your chest,

Ticking half past weary. Tocking a quarter past jaded.

Your mama created you with little to no endearment. Banished you to a lifetime of looking for God in unholy mannerisms then baptized you in the same tears she cried after becoming a woman accepting of never becoming accepted.

You spent semesters wandering around empty campuses begging emptier men to love you. Filled yourself up with every woman you thought he wanted you to be until you carried the wrong you across stage at graduation.

You are tired. There is no feathery way of saying it. The weight of the world has made a home of your body. Carved a hole in your chest, set its teeth into your flesh and settled into all the ugly things you keep buried at the bottom of your soul. 

What you know for sure is that you love him. Brown eyes and browner skin has always been your thing. But this is new. There is something different about the way he lies to you. There is fire in the way he has chosen her over you, twice. 

 You have cut him out of you more times than you can count. Begged God to take him away in the same breath you begged for him to come back. Promised yourself you will no longer reconstruct the way God put your ribs together in hope of him loving the new way you breath. 

You are tired of ending up on your knees. Begging a Man to keep a man that has never wanted to be kept by you. Face soaked in all the ghastly things he has said to you. Skin branded in all the ways he has said he doesn’t want you. Hair moisturized in the same holy water you used to wash the anguish out of your eyes.

There is an alarm clock in your chest. 

Ticking past parlous. Tocking past pride.

Your hands slip every time you go to turn it off.

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