Spaces where I don’t belong

It is a difficult thing to care.

Bruises

I was told to detach myself
Not to get too emotionally invested
When you’re spending time with those people
Some painful falls are to be expected

But a “bad apple” is still an apple
And what’s grace without it?

See I made the mistake of falling in love
with a place that’s chaos like a barn
mangy as that one with a manger and a baby
(who we pretend didn’t poop* on himself
and spit up when he was eating)

and I let my heart get tied up
in dangerous things
in too many people
so that each life boat rope they threw me
wrapped around my heart and
knotted
it
tight

The coarse fibers of twine
have kept me up at night
and ropes cut away
leave the worst indentations
nicks and bruises

But is the Sacred Heart of Jesus
just a glowing valentine
outside a white man’s chest
a plastic candy heart
he won’t even look at

or is his skin ripped and raw
above the bent bars of a ribcage
a heart that broke loose
its tissues bruised
and frayed?

I used to spend so much time afraid
to use this electric muscle
whose first job was to
keep pumping outward
I kept it behind my own bone walls
But every chest
rises
and
falls

And what is grace without
a rise and a fall?