the skin that’s broken

black streams of hair

twisting through the valley

collecting glances,

sediment

lost

in the flow like my chances of

knowing the path

realizing contentment after your facts are

revealed folly

running

down the paper road towards her

I’m wholly disappointed

in this aura

flashed past

like walking laughter

travels stationary

falling into ordinary desperation

faster

deeper and deeper till words no longer matter and there is only this

sound to turn my wheels in a cold puddle

dead children’s silence

holding on to

a novel way of saying no to everything

singing “look for me in the

open ocean

sky and dessert”

and I agree to devote

time to this ruin

casting off reality as a filtered

screen

a dirty window

lenses wiped with a narcotic spirit

smoke and vapor cleanse

lights my psyche

turning pages under my tongue

tell me the questions to this

answer I found in the lost places

behind

eyelids

“kiss the skin that’s broken

and build me a new sea

made of your fallen and

collected tears”

washing away the flavor

of quickened years shifting over body like all my fears

stapled together

and nailed to the nearest

swim trunk

soon forests fill with posters

of my deformed face and beached

near death images remain with me for a while

till the rain returns a smile when she walks by