Paper Thin Hearts

This poem is very personal. I wrote it when I was 15 and dealing with issues with my biological mother. This poem is about the issues of dealing with someone struggling with a drug addiction. Sometimes you reach a point where you want to give up and walk away but you have to remember how fragile that person really is.

Powdery thin, soft, translucent skin
Under my trembling fingers as I work fast
To repair all her rips and tears
But her skin gives me paper cuts

I told her once I'd put her back together
If she fell apart
So here I am fullfilling my promises
Mending her skin
Feeling guilty for her sins
Blushing for her in mortification

Glue back the pieces of a picture torn
By fingers that could barely rip the paper
Paper....

Rolled up with herbal escape in the middle
To smoke and drift..drift away
With the vapors that secrete from her tightly drawn lips

Chase those vapors and in doing so
Open...
Open wide sweetie...let it all out
Scream..cry for that precious smoke as it drifts
Across the room and into my mouth

She sat in the corner watching me with such contempt
Silent hate filtering from her gaze
Across the room to me...her savior
Such agony in her beautiful, bloodshot eyes
That I almost felt guilty...
Almost..
Guess I'll get mad instead

Now here I go to her
Doing the forbidden..giving into temptation
Touching her papery thin skin with sharpened nails
Ready to tear her apart, rip her insides out
Only to find...
She turned to dust beneath my touch