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In These 7 Years

7 Years of Thoughts

By Cori AnnPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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They say in 7 years your body reproduces enough cells that completely replaces your skin. Your body is completely new and untouched. Unmarked, unclaimed, a freshly wiped down chalkboard.

Well I don't know who "they" are and everything has been erased and rewritten 100 times over. As sharp as a tin can and as loud as a car alarm. So what makes that lucky number 7 so damn lucky.

Everyone knows the black boards at the school house have basket case letters. No matter how many times you take the white rag to it. There are the remains of angel ashes shadowing across the graveyard of a child's "education." What a way to live your life.

Everyone lies to you in hopes you'll have it better than they do. When you both have bitten into the chalk does it taste any different? Or stale like the only thing in your cabinet, those saltine crackers. Some Boones Farm wine to wash down the taste of guilt. Guilty from the expectations you leave at people's tomb stones or is that the name you gave the shovel that is diggin' my 6ft?

You can't wait to be an adult when you're 15 years old because it'll make the embraudered shame burned onto your chest finally feel better. Well I got bad news for ya kid, it only gets harder. No one has control, you can leave that at the sandman's hourglass after you watch the crystals fall from the sky.

I guess I realized that when I kissed him goodbye. Signed sincerely on my thank you letter for crippling my ability to see hope. He left her in the fog and the brights on my car don't work anymore. How can I find what has been stolen when I dropped my telescope?

Innocence is given to you for free with a warrantee that expires at first sin. The only promise that's kept is that your piece of mind will be thrown into a woodchipper. Trying to use the filters of cigarettes instead of bandaids will only leave a nostalgic smell that will be covered up with cheap perfume. So you might as well just bleed out on the bathroom floor.

This won't be the only time you dive head first into a pool of teeth. The hallowed breathing was just enough to leave a bite mark on your neck. Somehow, instead of swallowing the shot glass of razor blades you manage to sew yourself up with a shoelace.

The ones from that pair of converse with summertime written on the toes. Now that's burned with the rest of the clothes. Who knew a bonfire in the dumpster would be so unsatisfying to a pyromaniac. Those white bic lighters smashed on the concrete, even though the block was catching on fire she still couldn't feel the heat.

Sweet heart, didn't you know she'd let her flesh bubble if it meant her heart would thaw out. Of course you knew, you're the type of guy who'd throw a spike strip down in a foot race. Getting out of the blame for bloodying up that poor girls knees, since you yelled look out before stomping the wind out of her.

Which in reality that seems preferred over falling into a wilting box frame. Every night drowning in that stained mattress. It's not fair the tears that turned her pillowcase into the Black Sea. Those deep foaming waves of peroxide can't save her from the tide every night. That salt I've poured onto snails as a kid is the same kind I cry with too.

Those sundown walks on the pavement, barefoot and too drunk to notice. Forgetting that your body has weight will be the closest I ever get to space. Not saying what scares you out loud takes the gravity out of your fears people make you be quiet about. Because "not everything is scary." Just as we blame the sharks for protecting their territory.

Bear skins and dusty buck skulls settling with the house. I wonder if they knew before they got shot that I hang my skeletons in the closet before bed. They didn't ask for it either but were still hunted in the dark. Cut open and gutted, only they don't feel the pain because they die with their bullet wounds and it takes us a lifetime.

Everything will be okay when you feel the rain instead of just getting wet. What does it matter whether she got wet or not, she's still shivering sitting alone in the shower. Hoping the static along her spine will slip down the drain. A wild bird that became locked in her own ribcage. Singing the same tune of her brothers and sisters in a sound proof room.

See how 7 years doesn't seem like a number to worship. More like the devil at the crossroads got the best of you. Not the same as shaking hands when those lips took away everything I held onto. Promises can be broken but those horns on his head made a swear God damn it.

performance poetry
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About the Creator

Cori Ann

My goal here isn't to make a killing off of this whole writing thing. I'm just trying to create! With that said I hope you feel when you read what I write. Whether it's good or bad, it's a feeling.

Take it easy

-cori

James 3:3-6

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