To Have Lived

 no meat left to speak of. just bone. brittle from exposure. 

and flesh slick with blood. desperately trying to hold on to what's been severed. 

we bargain with the monsters. naïve to their true nature. trading in long kite strings and buckling baskets that  leave us stranded. 

we drown in the choices. paralyzed by missing answers. 

plastic soldiers at war with the sun. betrayed by the tender arrows that sell us to those dark and familiar places. 

no knots small enough not to be undone.

just the lies that once functioned as our truth. and how heavy they've become.