let me be the first to say
if this was "a good run",
i'd hate to think what a marathon with you would be like.
if i had to venture a guess
somebody would lose miserably.
not that i'm trying to boast,
but let's just say,
in "the long run",
i go the distance.
you huff and puff somewhere behind me,
gasping for air,
trying to mouth the word 'water'.
while people place little shiny pieces of metal on my chest.

confined to your own head, you might as well be a steam engine.
burning little holes in your turncoat.
making new friends in old dens.
masking proclivities.
barking at intruders like a dog.
what caused her, so many times,
to remove herself from the same line of thinking?
the man with the cocktails doesn't know,
but he knows the solution.
the solution to all life's problems,
to be imbibed and controlled.
the embrace for the embittered.
the fuel for the fire.
the stoke for the engine
the energy to keep chugging along at a good clip.

If blood came solely from my chapped lips and the spit that issued from them,
maybe you'd know I meant it.
The force that only comes from the letter 'f' flung forth with great ferocity.
The fear induced by a sudden change in the airs humidity.
The fever that comes from fire stoked in between my four burning lids.
Pardon me for feeling such things,
for facing the truth that is the sham of these past few days.

"Forever my *** you fake *******, clean your face and *******."

If I was to write home
I'd have to tell them I died under a horse I beat far beyond death.
I'd have to tell them that I caught a disease from breathing in the atmosphere here.
I'd have to tell them I fell into depression on a milk farm out west.
I'd have to lie, I'd have to lie a lot is what I'm saying.

She's bleeding into thoughts painful and obtuse;
reclusive mysteries made apparent by violence
and forceful introspection.
Severing ties and reforming them
licking wounds and digging at them.
For once let the madness cease to be so vivid
that it erases me.

Give me a ring, to slip off my finger.
It moves to my right hand.
I move to my right hand.
and you raise your right hand at me.

I let my words drip onto a keyboard, since I don't cry anymore.
I am shocked that we never have time to talk, saving breath for breathing.
I cut down trees to reveal the forest.
And at my poorest, I never blamed you for being true to the version of you, you felt most comfortable in.
A second skin, for skin walkers.
I've had more and less,
in less space than one can have with the bitter tastes of phrases caught in the back of the throat.
What we wrote on pine trees scars me,
taking far too long to heal over.
But I grow as growers do. And so do you.