Poetry by ESH Leighton : Ballad of an Unbalanced Mouth

Ballad of an Unbalanced Mouth

I do not have symmetrical lips.
They are crooked
from kissing
and falling,
from fighting
and dog bites.

Some precious moth
didn’t land upon my
face
didn’t bless me with
a perfect two-winged pout.

Mine is a mouth of rage.
Of insolence and
sarcasm,
of lost breath
and wear
from too many times
of repeating my own name.

My lips,
they live and die on
my face,
and slowly, slowly
deflate like lungs.