Sunday, May 28, 2017

Relics

I carry summer scar tissue
at the juncture between my jaw
and the slope of my skull
tight and strained.
It aches in the middle of the night
as my teeth try to sharpen themselves
grinding to a point.
It would be nice to be able to bite back
but snapping at shadows is a waste of time.
To smile is a strain
and I suspect the white filaments
of reknit skin stretch along
the whole of my body
sitting under my skin to tighten
at odd texts and a room that's the wrong kind of quiet.
I don't like to be alone for long
because my brain keeps working to reconnect
these wires that fried themselves out
with week after week of electric fright.
How many times do you press a bruise
before the stain spreads?

Stranded

The tide is turning.
At a granular level this must be
apocalyptic.
I wonder absently
if the moon figures as some abstract villain
wreaking havoc on lonesome crabs
who scuttle desperately for cooler sand.
Do sand crabs tell stories?
I imagine between their horseshoe shells
and snapping claws there exists
some tiny spark of brain.
Is it enough to feel the fear
of the future being peeled away
by some distant foe too vast
to do more than shake a pincer at?
The moon does as it wills
and we must scurry on.
Inside of you I picture a blood red moon
pulling at each neuron in your brain
leaving them firing, haphazard, at each other.
I shake my fist at it
as pointless as a pincer
and watch you pull away into some darkened space.
Perhaps the world is cooler there
within your self-made burrow
but it leaves me all alone
in the crashing waves.