There is no safe passage
through primitive worlds
something sacred inside you changes
the moment you realize other silhouettes
are crashing
detached and filthy
through the moonbeams
bursting indifferently
from high heavens

Suffering
the chronic kind
does not idle long
in it's codeine lurch.
It wages
sustained
low-level constant assault
with a mercilessness no other can hear
until the mind adapts
or hemorrhages entirely.

Bodies are temples we burn to the ground
wrists lashed
to time lapsed flowers
fingers still grasping
blankly for an out.
Claiming to
feel nothing except
the feeling
of nothing.
Saying that we don't, when
we do
rolling it between tongue and tooth
until it tastes almost true.

Wind flailing heavy
in the midday heat
shimmers like outstretched hands
lining immemorial hills
not seeing you through,
but cascading through tree limbs
as the mortars fall short,
greeted first with silence
and ringing
before the screaming begins.