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Rust
I wonder who would come,
If my heart, attacked, now,
Vessels, swords drawn,
Clots, clutching, at the final beat
and mourning the death, of a final soldier,
would they drop it when they were done,
hands outstretched, my heart – attacked,
by those who know him more,
blood would stain their hands,
more like filaments of the what we once learnt about in grade school science,
chewy, maybe, like the fissure between your teeth,
determined, like guilt, of the sirloin steak,
and I would drip, my heart, no longer my own,
beatless, like the drum I abandoned after a failed go-
My brother had made it, stretched plastic, paint tins,
Art-really, but I’d given up, much like he has now,
angry that I didn’t feel the same, the current of melody
through the drumstick, the thumbprint of musicality
that he feels, a string, a chord,
he hoards them up, for the perfect song,
one that he shall never write,
It lay abandoned in the backyard
weed shooting through the plastic,
nature clawing back what was once his,
what was stolen from him,
pressed into plastic, and melted to metal
it rusted too – brown, gold, yellow,
like autumn, nature, again no doubt,
clawing so quietly, so determinedely,
so only that when I stumble upon it later
do I notice the streaks of brown,
but of course, so human am I,
and like nature, driven by his own ego,
I only noticed my own shortcoming
in the tinges of russet, fringing the steel,
My brother laughs like that now – rusty,
as if streaks of death stain his oesophagus,
as if weeds bind there time at the foot of his throat,
waiting to spring, claw their way back,
take what is theirs, and shoot through his open mouth,
and they will one day, when his limbs have lingered to loam,
and smoke stains, and autumn’s reflection in the colour of your teeth
-are no more,
So if my heart attacked me, now,
who would come, to my rescue,
he, once, adept at the drum, unlike me,
would they visit me bedside,
cry, mourn, coffinside,
would she give my heart back
or would she still stake her claim,
from the loam, from nature
with his autumn chrome,
from the smoke that stains my fingertips,
and the vessels, swords, now unhinged,
would she return it to the bosom of my family,
to my brother perhaps,
or bury in the backyard,
let nature have his way
and cradle it, rust and all,
shoot weeds through my vetricle,
till it too, succumbs to decay,
the attack, now but a memory,
yet a victory, to the earth and clay,
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I like boys with strong convictions and convicts with perfect diction, Underdogs with good intentions Amputees with stamp collections
-So Nice, So Smart
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