Nevertheless

we lingered in the artifacts. pretending to read the pages that had been torn out. we listened as the rain began to fall. a million needles hitting our skin.

there's no armor. no bridge. no place that can take us there again.

the crippled ghosts debate with their ladders. how high they can get.

we try to remember ourselves, but tomorrow erases us over and over again.

the intersection tenses. we look both ways. but we don't see what's too close.

time stumbles over the miles that make us. we try to run, but its weight is too much.

the pinch of god destroys us. as we suffocate in its empty epiphany. animals in a muzzle.

flesh listens. when no one else will. an unbreakable bridge between who we are and who we've become.

we touch. and the logic overwhelms. it's always been this simple.