The Longest Haul

I didn’t want to be touched but you put your hand on my knee and said:

“I don’t talk much.”

So I closed my eyes and escaped through the gutter. I was whole, if only for that instant, watching my body swim up through the beginningless current. Dodging nightmares and overhanging branches.

I washed up on the shore. Alone. And there was silence, even from the waves, as if they knew me already. They watched me backhand crawl up the gravel of the shoreline like I’d been here before. It’s all the same to me. Cut up from sharp rocks and broken bottles or your tongue and how it refuses to move. The only silence I can’t bare.

I found The End. I won’t tell you how it was, but I shut these four petals up against the cold and settled in for The Longest Haul.