Particular Pauses

 trace the numbers. scrape the bridge. negotiate the defiant exceptions.

there's a total. an accumulation. that is seldom counted.

stories told in bent voices and broken skin. 

the caustic arithmetic of trust. bleeding its equations all over our bruised knees. 

time is a patient dictator. a lazy machine. gnawing on its own gears.

no waiting, she huffs. everything is right now. or has already happened.

the road bites down. as we slouch toward the horizon. choking on our defiance.

the distance tastes the zippers we've let come undone.

we're exposed.

only to realize. we always were.