I've only awoken on the sidewalk once 

 

And once wasn't enough .

 

a black string is caught in the small hairs on my arms 

cooling dews, falling: a near palpable mist 

whirring and chittering insects

like collections calls 

 

i can feel broken glass filling my pockets 

unsent text messages to blocked numbers 

i cant remember who fired the first shot 

but in certainty I fired the last 

 

I don't miss them when I'm sober ,

can't afford to .

 

I could lay here forever

pre-embalmed, bound in leather 

brimming with hand written stories 

bathroom graffiti 

inside jokes and sought secrets 

just out of reach, resting

at a depth of where the needle wore the grooves too deep 

 

a car passes slowly and asks if there was someone I could call 

and I can tell them that I'm not sure 

but I don't 

 

the pastel scorch of dawn breaks 

and the horizon pours in.

it's a long time since I should have left this body 

but there's so much more to do. 

the ants stir and pull and prod

searching, harvesting, eating 

warring 

it's a long time since I should have left this body 

but there's so much more to do

 

i won't move 

it's a long time since I should have left this body 

I won't move 

It's a long time since I should have left this body

I won't move : 

 

shall not bend against the ruinous tides of time 

made to push and trap my dreams aside 

I cannot be crushed against the rocks 

leftover from corroded bones

of false witnesses, whistling in the briny breeze

jagged crystalline

dredged up from Hades

polished in grandeur 

meant for me to run aground . 

meant for me to stumble when looking up and out 

for answers : for the missing parts 

I was unbuilt with 

 

engineered incompletion

and the hollowness of what I owe 

to greater things than helheim below 

 

I won't move 

;