bleak again

soon or later i will be tree roots or
fire.

a section from the window, and the escarpment beckons, two hands by the sure hope of heat
salted by suffering as to preserve

my dignity, my quiet ire. it's the crash i hear, when my dead sons and mother and her old ways and chatter
ghost me by the grate where licks of flame spark.

whose memory did i lie to? the wood panelled picture frame with the child i use to be. the wolfed down accent of someone older, their cracked sympathy and faultless love. a living room with a whip and i don't know where that went, away with the baked towels perhaps.

but the only sons i have are the ones i use to be when i smiled and fell through windows or threw dirt, scraped knees and hit bricks, blood streaming from the mess of cousins, a silk tangle between lies and frozen peas, but i didn't cry. i didn't rat either.

baked towels are the best memory, like my skin remembers them even though it stretched and maybe ate up my younger self- devoured. my skeleton stands taller, more able, so easily crushed by gravity.

though that's the crux of it: the labyrinth and the suffering; how to revolt from new teeth and shining eyes, bottle pain and muddle lips against other lips when words are useless little silences we use to forget how to feel. to trust.

to otherwise be a child and leave my hands to yours and know that you will hold them from tomorrow when i will be gone older, thirsting for the thing i cradled once.

or never have i breathed, wanted, loved.