A Lingering Paradox

 how easily we forget. the discarded skins that were once our lives.  orphans wandering long corridors between rooms that remained locked. 

we taste the moment. the grief of why. the spoils of how. arrogant strays bitten by the fangs of loss. 

our breath repeats. our blood resolves. charlatans in borrowed faces selling  the wishes in wells gone dry. 

the engine hums. to the stifling crescendo of want. 

we stumble over the corpses of ourselves. the editors of our own misfortune. 

turning softly on the ache of consent.

mouths open. to taste the catastrophe. fists clenched to own the mistake. 

still slouching toward the whimper of something real.