It tastes like fire.
I've been run over by crickity
subway carts
one too many times
and now my deformed fingers
can't pick up pencils.
On the way back from
Manhattan
I was tied to rusted train tracks
and left to drown
in the salty August rain.

Old man with cane,
let's call him Michael,
prods at my sockets
picks at my skin.
Rope burn stings almost as much as an
infected
sore
from all the laps around
my head
is filled with
maggots
and being
last year's leftovers
again
and again