like waiting for a bus in the rain

Drops of gasoline drench your skin
it droops and sags and you scratch at yourself 
till scarlet stripes boldly mark you as claimed but you still
cannot escape
the confines of tar that cling to your heart, iron shackles binding the wrong places

you see your sister 
your mother 
your eight year old self-
your pulse is in your toes erratic and loud,
the gallop of stallions; 
but all you can hear is the flutter 
of a thousand hummingbirds in your chest
and they are drowned by the storm in your throat

torn down, tiny needles prick and stab and you're filled and you feel
like bullets have torn through your skin in the place of nails 

inhale
and suffocate 
as expectation apprehension supposition uncertainty infuse your lungs till there is no room for the air that you breathe 
and you struggle to keep your head up

then grasp at the embrace of warm words to heat up your frozen fingertips
unfurl from beneath yourself and reach
upwards
falling is not so bad