Crooked Grins

I’ve got a thing for lopsided jaws

For uneven grins

Great hair

And hearty laughs.

I’ve got a thing for scraggily faces

For kind eyes

For mama’s boys.

I’ve got a thing for rough hands

Flannel shirts

 And thick leather boots.

But most of all

I’ve got a thing for the broken.

The ones who’ve fallen apart too many times to count.

The ones whose child mosaic skin is still drying from the last time they were shattered.

Ones who can’t figure out themselves enough

To even care what the hell is going on with me.

Because it’s those ones

The busy self absorbed broken ones

Who don’t need me when I am shattered

Who don’t need me when I can’t stand.

Who don’t need me when I can barely scrape myself off the floor enough to breathe.

I know love is about trust

And you gotta find someone to love you and trust you and care for you in those broken moments

But I’m not ready for that yet.

I am not ready to give someone so much of my heart that they have a majority

Not ready to have shareholder meetings in the open

And have them dictate to me how best to pick up the pieces.

I like the shareholder meetings I have alone in my bedroom at night

Bending and breaking and stitching and gluing by the street light

And praying someday I’ll stop mending this skin of mine

And just find a new one

So I don’t have to be ashamed of the worn places and the patches.

No I don’t think I’m ready yet for someone to step in

Hold me when I feel broken

And tell me to breathe

Because I haven’t figured out how to say those words back

And I don’t know how to work these two lungs of my own

Let alone breathe oxygen into anyone else.

So I’ve got a thing for these men

These men who can’t stand in their own leather boots sometimes.

Who can’t look themselves in the eyes and see an honest man.

Who don’t notice the girl whose got her fingers curled around their coattails

Begging for a ride to anywhere but home.

But someday I’ll grow up.

Someday I’ll stop wishing on stars and moons and pennies

And praying that I had new skin.

Someday I’ll be okay

But for now

For now I will lick my lips at these men

These broken, crooked jawed flawed men

And I will know they are my now.

They are my present

Not my future.

Because someday

Someday I’ll have it all figured out.