Roots in the Mud

time took us away from ourselves. torn paper. seldom ink. the path surrendered to the weight of choices we didn't realize that we'd made.

there was blood. and bandages. we never questioned how we would recover from those wounds. I ran as loud as I could, but no one listened. in an aristocracy of touch, the deaf are royalty.

the wind listened. as well as it could. constructing its uneasy bridges with the fragile filaments of our trust.

we're fingers that need to feel. we're voices that must scream. we're only alive when we're broken.  rudders adrift in the ocean. anchors bargained to the waves.

told by lost in a frequency cuts. measured by when in fading lanterns. selling the horizon to sober's ugliest extremes.

i couldn't say how close we were. but how far was obvious. i knew the numbers. but the colors were all that i could see.

the empty dresses that spent our dolls. plastic limbs and vacant eyes. abandoned. full of stories we could never tell. ripe with a when never to come.