We read tragedies to cast shadows on our fingers until we pull our hands away and realize they're stained black.
Our impartial grief resolves by tucking the stories in the shelf and taking a shower.
We scrub away another world's trauma from our wrist, browse Netflix for something happier, and go to bed at 10.

Tomorrow we will reach out for handshakes to display their firmness and how it's all a hoax.
See we're stronger than the others. We don't lie in graves, we scrawl marks on a concrete wall and say they would have died regardless.

We reach out for handshakes and tell you it's inconsequential.
But your arm tremors from holding tragedies woven through your lips, and your hand shakes as it grasps at strings holding your house together.

We reach out for handshakes and cry freedom.
While you read tragedies scribed under your skin.
They wrench under layers of sinew, twisting your nerve endings into a lump at the base of your skull so big I can play tennis with it.

We reach out for handshakes and tell you grandma was old anyway.
You breath in tragedies and hope the heart beating in your ****** can scrub it off.
You bleed tragedies on a hospital bed and wait for a transplant that matches.

We reach out for handshakes and tell you you're not choking
You clutch at the tragedies swallowing your lungs and tell us to let go of the plug.