03 outside

outside

I was there, 

watching my skeleton

dance in the summer heat,

blissfully unaware of what

awaited me, of what would

haunt me for so long.

Unable to

push the heat from

my blood and into the ground,

I knew what I wanted.

I didn’t know how to

fight them

the same way or how to

keep them--those unrecognizable,

blurry shadows, avoided spaces,

muted commentary,

vacant objects,

unnamed beings--away from

the crevices of my mind that

I should have

had closed off and untraced.

They became harbored and

stationed, like ships from past

wars, ones that should have

died that night.