Today,

the rain forgot to fall.

It hovered, stiff and unsuckled—

a ghost’s son

nursing on the mouth of sky.

I watched it—

black-lunged,

glinting like the tongue

of something too divine to touch.

And grief sat there,

fat and maternal,

purring like love

under a wolf’s eye—

kindness of the

old canine god

licking its bones.

I thought of being brutal.

Of tearing the thunder

from the child’s mouth

before it could sing.

What use is a lullaby

in a world

where the cradle

is a furnace?

My fingers—

an antique grenade.

My mouth—

a lace of arsenic and honey.

Still, I sit.

Still, I mother the silence

like a coffin

carved out of

my origami apologies.

And love?

Love is a pink thing

that bleeds when you

look at it too long.

Love is the knife

you forgot to sterilize.

So,

I wear your absence

like a holy thread —

wrapped three times

around my throat,

just tight enough

to remember.

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