Didn't Anyone Ever Tell You Not To Bring Claws To A Gun Fight?
Well, I swear I heard your heart thumping through your shirt
(although that was more your forte)
And your best friend said he heard you screaming
Through the door.
My hands shook as I held the handle,
Thinking back to the day you smashed in the glass,
Shattering the bones inside your fist
(you said you were okay
Adrenaline stopped you from feeling anything until two hours later)
And the glass is still broken,
I never wanted to change the fragments that you helped to destroy
Of my life,
The glass glinting off your palm,
Your blood smeared on the shards like failure.
You grinned too loudly whenever you saw me
But your skeletal hands gave you away,
Shaking, pulse jittering, skin thump-thump-thumping
To the rhythm of your blood
Sparking hatred round your fingers, that sharpened into points for
Wondering eyes to despair
And a faulty tick-tocking in your eyes that brought my raised eyebrows to a
Stand-still for a moment
(only a moment)
But that is enough weakness for you to let out a snarl.
You say
“love is for the innocent
& I am not innocent”
But then you go out and get drunk and let some random man
From a random club
Feel you up behind the dumpsters in the back alley
And I say
“you are nothing but innocent,
Innocence courses through your veins like breathing
Innocent grips the back of your neck like a dirty fingernail
Of the all hands of every man you’ve let misuse you
And still let you think you’re not innocent.
Innocence is a disease
And you’ve got it bad”.
Just because we are polar opposites
Doesn’t mean we’re not attracted to each other
I feel your heart in my heart
And keep your soul whispering into my ear from my shoulder
So every movement you make
I’m there with you every step of the way.
You’ve got claws,
And I’ve got a gun with silver-tipped bullets,
And even though I see the universe inside of your eyes,
Maps leading back to me on the back of your palms
The way you shattered the glass pane in the door still haunts me
Even today
And I wake from my dreams in a cold sweat because
Sometimes I am that door,
And you’re punching me over and over until I crunch like
Sanded glass and fragments of lost hope beneath your fist
And you see death in my left over
Little pieces.
You – with the claws
And the anger
And the overwhelming innocence for a creature with lives you’ve taken are smeared over the bumps and ridges on your palm
You – with the snarl when I let it show I need you
You – you scare me
With those claws, you scare me.
But I’ve got a gun
And didn’t anyone ever tell you not to bring claws to a gun fight?
