We sit, splintered against skin:

Hieroglyphs spouting complex symbols

From untamed mouths; bodies

Perspiring pits, dropping brows,

Salting welted wounds;

 

Trying desperately to be brave,

Behave in ways we have always been seen,

Glean the truth of who we are,

What we’ve become,

What we do, what we’ve done;

 

Wrestling Rottweilers,

Unmeshing masquerades,

Bending back barbed wire bare handed,

Trying not to get too scathed;

 

Fashioning limp limbs,

Ringed hands, sweaty palms

Into loose ledges; edging

Tentatively, towards edges;

 

And cradling, somehow, each other -

Sisters, brothers in arms, at brinks;

Chiseling steadily at our chinks.