Shallow

exhaustion sleeps in these bones
drips from fingertips
in parody of fluid: weighted down and
drifting.

in dreams there are barren oceans and
drowning i wash to shore, soaked, sinking,
naked but for the ties that bind me.

hush:
the inrush of breath, caught in my throat,
choking, swallowed, coughing:
silently, i watch the sky flow away.

if there were wishes for life then life, mayhap, given,
but instead only sleep whines with tinny voice,
only rest caresses and begs.

the angels that could bless serenity have gone today,
and no voice remembers
those that sink to the bottom of this sea.

every other day, every other moment,
summer dresses soaked to the skin,
you taste like rain; the tired wet of tears
walking miles down this road
back to the beginning.

if it’s a battle you’re seeking,
i’ve got no swords to battle,
no words either,
nothing but myself laid bare on a white bed,
listening to the wind rattle.

storms outside paint lightning sketches,
while inside the sky is leaking,
my bones shudder under my skin
as the sheer silk of our truths dismantles:
wounds hastily bandaged now seeping.

you could tie me with my own chains,
i would not move to resist,
not when it was our love that bruised,
not when it was you that i adored,
i would not ask you to desist.

and if every fifth day we wish for death,
remember the rain that fell on the sixth,
for our winters come and go like spring,
temperamental, instrumental,
and every other day painted with bliss.

we sank our ships into seas of asphalt,
and all those mind pirates begged quarters on the roadside:
if you feed them oil they’ll grin thank you
and spit back murder.

the sand in our shoes gives away the truths
we begged before our peers,
and our innocence is so little as to have been paid for
by the man down the street selling lemonade.

oh, he claims he uses real sugar,
but we know he’s poisoning the wells with
the sourest of words: he says (he said)
it was all in the mixing but we know (i know!)
it’s the hungry taste of blood.

(and dear, i’m starving.)

give him my money and thanked him politely
for blessing the starving children with jobs:
the world would collapse into chaos if we didn’t
give them something to do (to sew).

and all those polyester giants!
stalking the plains and stomping over the oceans,
they could swallow the world whole if we let them.

(oh: but we’ll let them and we’ll love them!)

and i’m wandering the streets with the machine monsters
who all beg me to buy their sweatshop lemonade and i’ll cry
yes, of course!
as long as you buy mine too.

i cannot have expected from you
the sweetness in your bones,
hunted down and let to rot in the sahara sun.

who is the fool now, when the lions have their fill?
and the hyenas of my heart are laughing,
eyes gleaming and grinning.

but the vultures circle cautiously, my hands
clenching tight to avoid picking apart
the flesh i know is left for me.

i know i speak often of the love we lost,
but think now we should have instead gifted our hearts
to those more in need of their bloodless grace.

there are starving children with bloodshot eyes
while we feast on each other’s remains:
we’d share, but the scars are tough to chew
(or at least that’s what we tell ourselves).

i stand in the heat and watch the innocent,
wondering if i will still be predator in the morning,
or if you will have picked me clean.