I’m deficit you see,
In need of a glass of milk,
I had one too many glasses of you.
You touched my skin,
And I thought I’d find a better way to race.
Like if I erased the past,
And rewrote the future,
I’d find a better way to love.
For you were of me,
And I of you,
Flesh and tendons and muscles and love.
But now we’re simply brittle bones.
We spent our time building strength,
False because our muscles couldn’t support,
The weight of our hearts.
Now like bone on bone,
We scrape.
Scrape the love,
Scrape the memories,
Everything scrapes me raw.
Less of who I was,
A skeleton of who we were.
And you’re in my bones,
I can’t escape.
Even if I drive for a thousand miles,
The memories of you haunt me like phantom pain.
I’d crush my bones to forget the sting,
Of you.
For you and I are just alike,
Ribs,
A skull,
And a breaking heart.
Crying alone in the hours of night.
Remembering the feeling of being held in the dark.
So I draw the drapes,
And turn off the lights,
They can’t see what goes on inside,
My head.
Spinning, screaming, softly crying,
To remember the brokenness we catered to over
And over
And over
Again.
For we were never meant to love,
We rubbed each other raw.
Cracking and fracturing,
Continually,
Never healing the wounds.
Over stretching,
Over exerting,
Over exhausting,
Wearying our bones.
And we ignored the doctor’s warnings,
We continued on,
Sucking the marrow out of life.
I can’t walk,
Can’t stand straight,
Crippled by everything I thought you were,
You aren’t.
And He let us break ourselves,
Learning lessons comes from being,
Suspended and stranded.
You look to the ceiling.
That’s what body casts and breakups do.
And you know your brittle bones lacked nutrients.
I sapped you,
You sapped me.
And now we’re just crushed bones.
But these crushed bones will rejoice,
In the pain,
In the loss,
In the ache of goodbye.
For He is restoring,
He is building back,
The strength I have lost,
To the mistakes I have gained.
Within the holes I chipped,
He filled with joy.
Within the crushing blow,
He saved us.
He saved us from ourselves.
************************************
Psalm 51:6-8
“Surely You desire integrity in the inner self,
and You teach me wisdom deep within. Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones You have crushed rejoice.”