ex marks

It comes down to the differences, the map in mind versus the map in hand, where you put your you when you aren’t here. It comes down to the numbers that comes slopping out your mouth. You say the prayers that suit you, you ring around the rosies. You spend your starlight on weighted constellations, your stories the dancing shadows tossed from the crackling fire of your life. A day misfired, the hawk at your window gazing back at the wrong sets of eyes. Your tattletale heart staying true whichever you you pull. Root to crown your glorious gown, all crocodile tears and alligator grins, your stride the shape of heaven falling down. 

We are always traveling, changing shapes and taking on skins, shoving our way from train to crowded train. We are the roads we ride, the company that jostles and elbows us about, the something in the air we keep passing around through blood and belly. The particles we shed with every step and breath, the world that passes through our teeth. I trail smoke, agitate the air around me, feed the early bird mosquitoes. I sit in conspicuous disarray, as the neighborhood takes its turn. I sit in ugly introspection as the world gets out all its screams and whispers. Here I go, leaking dull abstractions where a real live animal once happened. Here I go, marking another where with words.

Look, if I ever had a purpose, I most likely served it. If there was a use for me someone would have found it by now. It’s not that complicated. I’m largely point and shoot, mostly plug and play. The days dissolve as I try to touch them, the path crumbles with every aching step. Not even snips and snails, I am sharps and sighs and unspoken goodbyes. I am the sputter of the ancient engine, the flag twilight unfurls. The entity aimed one way, the animal trapped the other. Not an ex, but an exclamation point, saying  “you are here.”