I have a habit

Of wearing wounds

Like molten medals

Burning into my body.
 

These are smoldering signs

Of my machismo,

The blazing blunder

Of lost footing,

Just missed leaps

And unseen stones

That blocked my wheels.
 

Skating skyward

Towards some better tomorrow,

I lurch for the clouds

While my earthbound boots

Stick and toss me like a doll,
 

Scraping skin on asphalt

Like butter on bread,

Only thinner.
 

And an inner

Wound is welded to the outer.  

Lost love leaves

Many marks.
 

There is the bruise on my lower leg

Connected to my bruised heart,

The sign of failed balance

And a fall from grace.
 

There is the cut of clumsy fingers

And the turning of my mother’s face

Like a knife

Separating this from that

And me from her.
 

I am a lonely boy

Blue with the welts of words

Slicing me from life

Yet burrowing down

Into the moldy marrow of my bones,

Rotting the very stones

On which I live,

From inside.
 

Until,

Like love’s fluid spurting out,

I eject these festering worms

Into the air

And turn them into Butterflies.
 

I have a habit

Of wearing wounds

Upon my silken sleeves

For all to see.
 

I take pride in my pain for

These are the marks of my machismo,

The mighty melancholy of my manhood.