left our things
cratering the desert;
palms upturned
pulling the pressure away -
soft-words
talking down the crumpled spine of loss.
the sand,
the sand.
if it wasn’t so fine,
would you be able to trust
the mistaking of
abrasion for absolution?
will you be able to forgive
the belief
that a collapse can come
with good intentions?

deliberation deliberate
how different to consider;
and to do.
tell and wait
show and stall.
keep time in back pockets.
fish for change
and make a
pittance.
surely after words,
came reactions,
and after broken promises
came sanctions.

surely after it stopped burning
things began to grow.
stories of salt,
of salting.
an act to crystallise
and make barren,
make bare.

starting
ceasing.
how similar to filling up,
and filing down,
a feeling.

couldn’t keep
my finger off the photo
could never keep things in.
mourning is just having,
a lack of
trigger discipline.

take me taste me
you are the body
reset me satiate me
you are the body.

touch only
fragments of the full picture
nobody says
the taste would betray me
nobody says
the heart
is the first ***** to commit mutiny.

stabbed, wrecked
punctured, indented
wilt the words so
so my mouth
isn’t responsible anymore.
it cannot be held accountable
for the vowels, unroot my language
supplant love in favour of it

like an opener
                            I remember your laugh
like a close.

beat into me until i'm broken and the feelings
alight the layer of skin just below the outermost,
like the lining of a jacket, catching aflame.

scratch out the remaining worries with the spines of your teeth.
rake me upwards, shred the doubts like old sunburn peel, and peel and peel the layers of mistrust off of me till i'm raw, pink and ready.

never has this body not been scarred
without first feeling excitement.

since you pierced it, now you're responsible. I'll chase that ownership, mutually owed, to the end of all meaning. till the sensations are the only bits that still make sense, and then you can make up for everything else.

only after this, after everything else is spread across a blood splattered floor, can things start again. only once you make up for not returning the parts of me. only once my remaining organs, now calcified, have been cracked to their inner ichor, and you tip me gently into your thankless lungs.

only once the prostration, the words left since butchered into me, have been flayed by your regret, and raised to the height of saints.

hang me up.
swing by my legs and wrap around the root of me like you once would.
debase yourself inside of me again, learn to build something again. dig deeper than needed again, strike copper in my veins so I can oxidise again. watch me alight again, at your briefest touch.