Do these words abrade your tongue like pop rocks?
Or do they make your tongue go numb 
Like hot chocolate in the bitter cold,
As the only warmth around stings the palms of your hand?
The remnants of chocolate powder at the bottom of the cup;
Somehow remaining trivial after all of these years.

All of a sudden you are eight,
Walking beside the unabridged version of yourself,
Listening to your Father’s words that form knives.
These knives puncture holes in this flimsy cup of yours,
Until that very warmth in your hand lets itself go entirely,
While the styrofoam cup thirsts for anything at all,
Because it does not know how to be obsolete.
You have listened to slander that pierced through a child’s organs,
But in this instance your dull knives do not surrender.

Without warning you grow to twenty four,
Residing in a false presence behind His words,
Repeating these second-hand judgments of malign. 
You grasp the thoughts that plague His mouth of cutlery,
Quivering as you hold it in the palm of your hand.
Does this childlike nature of yours burn your tongue like acid?
Or do you fall victim to it like quicksand,
As the only warmth you know is in the palm of His hand?