Earwig

i have never been anything well flaunted

i am tarnished silver, grey, like ash

i was bred to be useful as a cattle dog

until i drew blood from a calf

take me out to the back...

the floor colored in copper casings

red pollacked around me

i'd rather you held my head under the water

and keep it there, right there.

you’d light a match,

and hold it above the ripples.

the ones triggered by my lungs’ futile attempt at separating the particles of oxygen from their hydrogen

light another until this river runs still

i know you, and how you like to wait

i pray you close my eyes as you drag me to the bank

to spare you from their mirrors

i hope you see the edge of the highway, the one that heads north,

where we’d stare down a barn’s drawn-out collapse over the course of a summer

a tattered flag painted on its eastern wall

confronting you with promises turned empty bottles

we’d await its rotten foundational beams collapse

as i’d await your relapse

but you

you wait for no one.

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