cement

Mama told me to build myself out of cement.

Mama told me to paint my walls whatever colors I chose,

but to keep painting 

and keep painting.

Mama told me to build myself out of cement so when people pointed their arrows,

I'd stand still.

I used to think she was cement, that girl with the lovers eyes.

I used to think she was cement and I was wood,

crushed by her rock words 

like an axe to a wall.

But cement is made of raw love, broken sweat, and forget-me-nots.

She, she might have cooler air in her soul,

but all she breathes is fire.

And her soul is see through.

A mad combination of glass and plastic,

easy on the eyes

but easy to break.

And now I see through it.

Her frame cracks fast, and shoots back glass,

but cement doesn't go that easy.

And her,

her soul is see through.

There's no hiding the arrows on her back,

and the shotgun in her pocket.

Her love is not as tall as her frame,

or as high as her pride,

and it's casting a mean shadow of self-doubt across the pavement.

We can see through her,

where her shadow sits, straight and tall, 

glaring and grimacing and angry and tight, 

with arrows in its closed fists and insecurities laid like playing cards all around it.

But those paper arrows can't crack cement.

She will not outlast us.

We've got cement souls and painted paradigms,

and we're too busy admiring our murals

to feel the criticism

strike our backs.

She may stand tall,

but that only means her shadow is larger.

And I've always preferred light to dark.

I've always preferred brush to gun,

and paint to blood.

I only wish her soul could see

that razor blades don't fix people

like paintbrushes do.