You are the scorpion’s husk,
flattened by a bootheel’s careless arc,
left to dry in the dust
behind a trailer where the night
whispers through cracked vinyl siding.

You are the rancher’s spine—unbending,
unyielding—who spits at the stars
and calls their flickering weakness.
No lament, no plea, just the grind
of teeth against the dark.
(Whiskey burns, but not like silence.)

You are the highway’s endless hum,
the lie of motion without progress,
the contract that says move or starve.
No off-ramp, no rest—just the weight
of a rig’s stale breath and the ache
of another sunrise still too far.

You are the code that writes itself into oblivion,
a syntax of curses nested deep,
each bug a quiet unraveling.
No user manual, no fix—just the glow
of a screen that outlasts every dream.

You are the plumber’s wrench at 2 a.m.,
turning someone else’s excess into labor,
kneeling on marble, fishing out
the clogs of a gilded drain.
No thanks, just the echo of water
finally swirling down.

You are the fire’s last gasp,
the ember that believes, for a moment,
it might still hold back the night—
before the dark leans in,
and the cold does what cold does best.