heavy smiles + unreal befores

nocturnal eyes fished in your winter-heavy
bag full of bones-- pasts
and pasts, weighing you down
with their way of never letting you forget.
your hissing steam trailing from the mouth
collected in circles around the tree-limbs;
suspending them in mid-air
no support, no wires,
only you.
always, only you,
poor withered soul
collecting the shallow, light hearts from trees
and setting them in a stack in your weathered bag .

your teeth fell out of your mouth one by one
every month for two whole years and with the loss of each tooth you lost
a person; the fell out of your life. a familiar ache itched at your gums and the strings
holding your skin together.

i stood a ways away watching you from the dirt and you have never seen me, but it feels like, from the prickling of your arms, you know i'm here.

you are controller and i am machine; i mold myself to your ideal person and you still look straight through me. the flowers touched lightly to my gold hair but you move right on and on, to some intangible destination written on your tongue.

i am machine, brain-less heart-less without-words-to-throw-at-your-ears and i know that if i screamed to you you'd laugh rasping-ly, sand paper on cement, and even though you grow younger and your hair less gray
your laugh will scratch at me and sand me to a little stub of nothing; all i've ever been.

and i am begging you with my eyes carefully but your bag only grows and your smile, sinister, sinister, cockles from the dungeons and locks me all up in handcuffs.

i'm losing you.

your image has turned to static and i miss seeing your face clear as day, your voice running through me.

too late.

too damn late.

pasts and pasts weigh us both down and the sun has come up in your eyes,
blinding.