and i promise you that i will be brave

i could split apart my father's love for my mother
and show you all of my secrets
(because this is where i hide all things plainly)
but frankly i have no codex to predict
how you would react to the stark redness of my life
and i would sooner you wrap your hand around my heart
than try to patch the wound, even as it gapes.

here is the violent contrast, the sudden realization
you are less contamination and more evolution
the path my atoms were meant to take
breaking down and merging in perpetual osmosis
until even in madness i do not attempt to extract you.

the truth is that i would happily be your loyal subject
always for you, i was afraid of being of you
spurting equations and manically calculating
which pieces of me would remain
should this chemical reaction reverse itself.
i feared that your atoms in me were the only ones
that remembered how to breathe,
and i had gone too long in your presense
unaware that i was holding my breath.