(it) Kills

so long
you spoke a
word
goodbye and it
was spell,

I told you walking
forward

was a lie

you insist on finding cracks in
rock face, picking scabs off
my poor arms, poor legs,

I am exposed but you
turn away,

why? I don't know why
you've come,

will you take my fantasy?
will you strip me?

Is this end,

I have planned for all occasions
all outcomes,

I refused to write them down

they are forgotten, but I'll rummage
when time is near, when bell rings
for dinner on the buffalo's plains,
writ in sky, writ in holy high,

so long you speak the word
and I have followed,
walk in desert, no food, clothes
eyelids dry together, drinking sand
sad sand, all coughing,

I had hoped to lead myself,
master myself, but there are no
open spaces left, there aren't even
spaces, just names on tags
on shirts on souls on faces on dreams,

there's pavement and cars and bills
and whatever else,

the children force a mask on me,
it burns like ice, it warps, it spells

little sister sky little sister mud

it kills.