Running Tortoises

the years like smudges on our lips. we're stained. we're kissed. drowning in our stumbling songs. dancing to our broken music. orphans. all of us. alone. from beginning to end. 

too far again. swallowed up in the distance. pummelled by the wind. i listen for a murmur of choice in a world that doesn't seem to know when. 

the clock trembles. feverish with our grief. her body is sick with the time that sours inside her flesh. 

we envy gravity. its stern resolve as the edge approaches. 

we call it life. but we know it isn't. 

the corner turns us. and we're lost again.