Sorry doesn't change a thing

what's broken
remains broken.

Driven by red
riding hood,
wheels of eternity run
hot and cold
along the tracks
in her arm.

Around the bend
there are jigsaw
pieces of a puzzle,
scattered as destinations
once towns and villages,
now fodder for
the migrant beginner.

According to fable,
there's a wolf at the door,
home is no longer
a worthwhile rendezvous,
but a trap of origin.

Misery is a train ride,
a stray fantasy,
lingering in the wilderness
of her fractured mind.

She sells her gold bracelets,
for she needs
the dark coal,
she seeks
its deep freeze.

She can then
be many things
along the journey,
just never
a connection,
never a permanent signal.

A brass barometer lives beneath my ribs;
its needle flutters at weather only I can feel.
Thoughts wind around repairs, loops of cause & cure,
tightening the unseen air.

I read distress through pressure in my chest,
a metric too subtle to name.
Surface remains stoic;
under that, doors open for the few I trust;
at the deepest layer rests indifference,
flat, still, holding every swell in place.