everyone's face drips
you know
you've seen it
your face drips too
sticky skin sap sinking down
down
you don't see but you can feel it
in a cognitive mirror that shudders
and 72 silver tears from your mother
all the while he looks for his brother in the dark like he always has
45 minutes on a bike in the rain
but you feel nothing but her breath
you're gone from this world
a dropped thread in a quilted universe that was never patched for you
her dewy rasps from burned lungs tired lungs
innocent lungs crushed
by a heart too biBreath too fast for one so small
pigtails flying behind her
like the piece of string that flew off the back of his car that december
and just as fleeting.