the ugly end of the month

i can't seem to keep my focus for more than a few minutes. it strikes me as getting worse and i am scrambling to defy it. these all fell to drafting.

i have turned away from you now, my compass stung wrong in halves, and i never see the fire set...

i want more for you and always have—the only strength i could hold. my sadness is easy, with every hour, and violent strings, and a head that moves faster than my body. but you were an even weight, and blinding light—

i feel the house creeping up on me and my tongue buckle.

or it comes like a lung full with lightning, fingertips that are not fast enough, signals that burn up the chorus dusk, suddenly a single cracking note, for the fire song, my skin straps yours—

is this how a cartographer must feel, to have his whole world come to be found?