vertebrae

It is first that tension, the beads on a string, the spattering of prayers. The seeds of that moment, the baseline dripping along this old song. How like a love letter, how like pure rebuke, this constant discovery of the betrayal of self. You know yourself, that truth that feels like fable, you the punch-line for this aged joke. When the inevitable happens, you still seem surprised. All the terrible rest somehow relief at last.

I come undone, my dark doors open, the spooked horse heart of me stampeding into the night. I tighten and I grind until some hasp is left open, some spring release reveals me. I crackle and pop, I stretch beyond reasons reach. I keep this fire, so sometimes I can only burn.

There must be a wish for so much rubble. There must be something lovely in the light from all those bridges burning. I drove home in the morning rain, unsure of anything nearing why. The brunt of such need and contempt, all actions averaging out to nothing. A perverse vacillation between murderous distinctions, expletives spilling down my chin. Everything in pieces, I find myself at home.