Sifting through all the
fractured metaphor
from the lost and lonely
boy I was before
I find the train,
no longer a silver snake
moving like desire
across rails on tree
dotted mountain ranges,
but abandoned and disused.
It is hulking, still.
As imposing as it ever was
but it is also suddenly
made of fragile rusted
parts that look so solid
from a distance but flake
to shale like dust at even
the gentlest of touches.
It is not smoking, though
there is clear evidence of fire,
but even the most persistent
embers burned out and down
and away a long, long time ago.
No, it does not smoke or burn
it merely festers.
Growing outward in decay
even while it shrinks
inward from structural damage.
It is no longer a machine
built for cool, honest purpose
it has become a wreck.
Still, if you find ways to
explore the innards of the wreck
you'll find bird's nests,
foxholes, **** from animals
big and small, bird song
and flowers and wild grass
growing up throughout the
twisted metal hull of the wreck.
The engineer's compartment
with it's no longer working
shifters and radios is
overcome by flowering vines
and the sweet, damp heaviness
the forest has under a canopy
of dark green leaves.
Moved from what it was
assumed was to be a life's work
and robbed of the purpose
behind every one of the many
design choices it does not
sit, not exactly, it seems to
lay into the countryside
as if it shrugged before
embracing the gentle *****
of a lover's chest.
It is desolate in this place,
The wreck,
but it is somehow still
very much alive.
I hope there is meaning
in the discovery,
but have grow tired
from reading between
every single
******* line
I'm not yet dead, my love,
but I've begun to wither
on the vine.