Some days you gettin’ all my trust
Some days I can feel so empty
Some days I feel like You love me
Some days I feel like You left me

-Andy Mineo, “Clarity” (also part of the inspiration for this poem)

this could be a song
if the words weren’t cut to shreds
pressed down under broken piano keys
rasped through the voice of an artist
who has swept the stage with Autotune
and purple Photoshopped gowns
and plastic grins with cutout eyes

this could be a prayer
but my faith hides shivering, wrapped
in a torn paper bag in a cardboard hut
a wretched orphan who forgot to leave
breadcrumbs to follow home, with
only creased and dirty hands
to show for all the years between

this could be a dance
but still I wait for the music to come
spin strings of sorrow into golden dresses
and fill up cracked dirt with liquid light
show the rough spray of sanding and smell
of spilled paint behind my
perfect
picture
frames