Who Minus When

We had crab. and sausage. Carrots and rice. Wild feasts in the face of poverty. Because love, truly is, what you don't have. The void. In relentless heartbeats. All too eager to declare.

That I am.

Always was.

Shall be.

Terminal. The present merely a measure of our distance from the past. Mercury. Solids. Running like liquids. Away from whatever touches them. The sand and the saltwater in their constant war. Our footprints. Soldiers gone away. The broken math of strangers. Close enough to count. As friends.

If I were the sea there would be no waves. If I were the sand there would be no castles.

The inferno is closest when it seems farthest away. That tiny bullet they call heaven is stuck in my head.

And it's still as ugly as I remember it.