Sandboxes

Spent my childhood playing around in sandboxes

Gripping onto grass crying with desperation to keep from going home

My father prying on my tiny arms because he didn’t understand 

The intensity of how badly I didn’t want to leave

That happiness that let me be free how badly I didn’t want to go back and be alone

Dreaming of spreading myself across my safe spot forever

I guess I could never break the habit 

Now I’m eighteen and I’m grasping onto you as my life depends on it 

But I know how the story goes and you are the sand that covered me

When I was a child the same texture that I just can’t wash out

Clogging the drain and staying in my hair for days

Just a reminder of that thing that made me so happy

My hands are still as frail as from when I was small so

I grip and clench my knuckles until they turn white

My bones want to rip through my skin because I am so desperately 

Trying to keep you between the creases of my hands 

But my fingers are thin and these gaps are just

Keeping me from holding your hand 

They’re big enough for you to slip away 

I’m trying so hard to keep you from slipping through the cracks

But you just keep falling faster every time 

I adjust my grip but you just seem to disintegrate and the child in me is lost again

But there’s nothing left to hold onto other than the strings what was once our love

I had you in the palms of my hands

I had you in the palms of my hands

And I just can’t seem to wash you out of my skin

 

This poem is about: 
Me

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