How can you hold the very makings of disaster?
How do you ease yourself in finding trouble to hold onto?
You are gripping the hands that once
fumbled for a tearing of skin,
bore blood at the fingertips,
greeted the brick wall with excitement and shattering
my numbness along with it.
What comfort do you seek in weaving your fingers
with ones that tugged desperately on hair
and swept away floodgates of water from tired eyes,
proving to me I was weakened once again?

But I look down at the shaking documents of disaster
when your embodiments of happiness reach for them
and cover the wounds in an unhesitant embrace.
And I know those previous questions don't matter;
your infectious comfort of my hands rests in the palm
and spreads.

My hand is now only holding your hand.
Only.
And that's the only thing it should now do.

A man waiting on someone to die
drinks another cup, sighs
and looks at his watch, the face
everyone rememembers
for its twitch and drooping eye,
always running, always losing
a second, an hour, sometimes a day,
a year on the wrist of the dead.