Love Always, Donte.

Heart Beat

She reminds me of broken English.

A needle hop-scotching over black vinyl streets.

Her heart stutters before every beat because it's scared.

Scared that every guy who swallows her in his embrace has contagious arrhythmia,

and pacemakers aren't made for her condition.

She's sick.

Sick to the point where her mind dangles false images in front of her optics.

Often she mistakes shots of Nyquil with shots of Henney.

Makes her liver swim in alcohol because he pillow swims in tears.

At night, her prayers are more like arguments.

Not with God, with herself.

She battles her mistakes every night.

She screams like a blackboard getting massaged by nails,

and the neighbors think it's the blender.

She tells me, that God doesn't like her.

Says that he's probably sick of her heartbeat.

She thinks that God is nothing, but a handful of sermons and a pulpit.

Like he's not the savior.

Like he's not a fist clinching her future.

Like he won't punch a hole in the bass drum that settles in her chest.

She doesn't realize,

that each palpitation is a message notification reading,

"I'm here for you", and every time she doesn't reply.

She's lost faith.

And although she doesn't fold her legs and cement her hands to call him.

She still receives his messages....

Each beat at a time.