Not Yours To Keep by Fabrice Poussin

Today is the second thousandth time

I must attempt to forget, but instead

I will build you a temple

On the wallpaper of an aging soul.

Don’t go coughing again in the middle

Of a night when all sleeps, travel to

Dreamlands, neighborhoods so far away

Don’t you dare scream again at the boy.

You knew how to smile once, yesterday still

I saw you laugh with a stranger and his lettuce

A world yours, where no one was welcome

But pain, scars, punches never held back.

I want to make you laugh, long to see you

Smile behind, within, and outside all that skin

No matter the deep grooves and dried up pores

You must believe that you too deserve it a little.

You hold it to yourself like it’s yours to keep

Don’t you know you are not allowed

And the universe demands you share it all

For you too can only earn from borrowed time.

by Fabrice Poussain