then again

The boardinghouse burned down
Must have smoldered in the night
I regret that I wasn’t present
To experience the light

I’m ready to give to you a handful of ashes.

I’m sick now and unsurprised
In my bed I flail and writhe
Seethe with fever and I crave
Your dystopian sound

Its bitter grain, I’m nowhere-bound.

There is a day for which I wish to cry
And I may remember, or try to deny
It may have been a day spent
Kicking water from the dock

Then again it may have not.

And there are things I can’t forget
Trapped by the fence, alone on the swing-set
It must have been a day spent
Fifteen years ago

Or the night it made me shake beneath the blanket that you lent.

I am sinking just like you, my cynic.
I can hear your looming insect drone.
A woman would paint you with ashes
And still we are alone

The sense, I just can’t find it. Despite how much I’ve grown.

Limp on, your crippled shuffle and drag on, my blurring steps.