January stretched me out over her shivering tight frame allowing you to find rhythm on my desperate soul craving mothers milk i spat up before knowing how to walk through thorn field paths on my way home from school

they’d teach me

how to stumble

February wad me up

i was tossed aside rimming religious ladders and leaders landing close to imprints left by your step away strides

i could follow you

running from dark whisper shadows

silhouettes of familiar faces who built fences to slow our descent

they’d teach me

how to mumble

months knock in order

we’ll let them in

lessons will leak from their lead filled days of sped up traffic vapor haze seeping through left open windows

skipping with pain

i opened up

they’d teach me

to be humble