Touch Me

Touch me
to prove that I'm not broken.
The fault lines across my thighs
shiver as the cracks in my soul give way
and crackle like an ancient statue life has forgotten.
It's clear that History has been unkind:
she left me only empty eyes, a gazeless stare
a bust without arms to touch the world.
Chipped paint, used,
and broken--almost.
This remnant is intriguing or perhaps
has the air of something that was beautiful (once)
or has that potential somewhere in its core
if only the light is right and
the kindling beneath your faith is lit.

As for Time, well, she does nothing to speed the healing.
Everything you heard of her
is lies: even she
was not meant to be trusted.
Two years or two thousand
History has a way of breaking into my flesh via nighttime,
the smell of a damp new springtime
when everything but me
is born anew.

Undaunted, though ignored as she has been,
Time marches steadily forward
leaving my Now ever in the past
like an earthquake, on this night,
she shakes me from the ground up
leaves me breathless, again,
and broken,
but not destroyed.
She is fickle, after all, even in devastation, so
she leaves the pieces and I
survey the wreckage around me
search for new ways of picking up the pieces.
I reach for them with limbless arms and soulful,
empty eyes that beg you to
touch me
and prove that I'm not broken.