Limping Forthright

Nothing to walk on. Nowhere. He touched me like toenails ripped from the skin. Socks flooded in red. No heels. Just loosely laced sneakers drawn around the footprint. Of injuries more shocking than sudden. Of scales that label more than measure.

Were we always crippled. Only now it's obvious. We were always alone. Only know we have proof. Pain so fatted on our grief that it leaves us with nothing to regret. Anorexic depression withering as it continues to run though we've stopped feeding it.

One less foot. One fewer curtain to part. To tease the sun with rumors of recovery that dominate the idles of addiction. More blood. To clot. To pressure with the promise of actual scars. Salient portraits of a life mismanaged. Useless vows of the flesh to learn from the moments it can't remember.

Except for the colors it left in our skin.

As we cradled the bruises we assumed were our friends.