Broken Toes

Every day, you are standing on my toes.
I feel the pressure, the weight, and
The crippling pain every single moment of every single day.
It comes in the form of fear.
I fear smokers because you smoke, I fear coughs because you cough,
I fear hallways because one time you walked down a hallway.
I fear beer cans because they make you angry,
Because they don’t make you stumble but they litter the hallways and trip me as I try to run away from you
As you walk down hallways.

There are some days where you dance on my toes,
Crushing them and delighting as you hear the cracking of my bones,
Letting the percussive rhythm become the base of your war cries, your song, your dance.
You dance on my toes,
But by sunrise I know you’ll apologize.
You’ll call me to the table and watch me limp, watch me crawl
And roll over the beer cans in the hallway,
You’ll put out your cigarette and cough and say that you know you hurt me,
And you feel bad about that,
good.
But the thing is, you have no idea what you are supposed to be apologizing for.

You apologize for hurting me.
You don’t realize that even after you apologize you’re still hurting me;
You aren’t done apologizing yet.
But recognizing that would mean that you would have to get off my feet,
And if you aren’t stepping on my toes then how else will you make yourself taller?

The only times you remember that what you’re standing on is me are the times when you hear the bones crack and you watch me drag myself across the hallway afterwards.
You don’t realize that after you apologize you place your feet right back on my broken ones,
I have never been able to fix myself,
My toes have healed in twisted diagonals and after years of you re-breaking them I doubt I’ll ever walk right,
You don’t realize the extent of the damage you’ve caused and that’s why you don’t understand when I’m still angry even after you’ve apologized.