words

the line separating this from that
is charged with lonesome axioms
and electromagnetic impulses
spur your legs to walk away,
walk far into the night darling girl
and wear it about your shoulders
and weave it through your hair
and tie it to your wrist
and hang it from your hips.

twirl a cigarette between your fingers,
roll it over the backs of your knuckles
and press it between your crimson lips
all gloss and sheen and daring,
leave a stain around the filter
and burn that baby down
like a pyromaniacal wet dream,
balance guilty pleasure
between your ivory teeth
with the end of your tongue.

where are we now that you have come,
in a parked car just off the map,
in a church fire, a wounded confessional,
a raid, a riot, in a film, in a song;
do you see me to my arms in dirt
building mountains with my hands,
digging for change,
seeking to unearth notions i buried long ago,
long ago.

it could be that i will have a drink
to quell the slow recess of spirit,
to augment this strangeness of my heart,
it could be that i have set my course
by the dark ebb of midnight
and the cruel drawing of myself has followed
and as the cold grows colder
and the wind shakes the glass of my windows
and insomnia settles in for the night
i do not know whether to pray or repent or sin
and so i do none of these things,
i have a drink, or two, and revert back
to the younger savage i have moved forward from.

-S.C. Martinez