Aiming for the callouses of the earth

Some nights the air turns brutal

And all you can see are planes

Butter-winged in between the sheathes of wind

Aiming for the callouses of the earth

And you never really thought you’d be the kind

To make a death threat, but right now you’re dying

To kill something or other as though life

Were just the little light atop a birthday candle

Or some medal you can take away.

Now, here, as silent as the swords you’ve sewn into your page,

The bitterness comes seeping through like cold molasses,

The bitterness and silence and the stillness of your endless want.

You drown it in defeat. You cry. You whimper.

Your words are pointless and your wings have fled.

You write down lines on lines and almost drunk on feeling you make the call

To instead lie low

For as long as you need before the sun starts to glimmer

And then what, will you wake in a puddle of bitterness again

Looking out over grey sky through translucent windows into snippets of other people’s lives,

Going about cutting crusts of bagel in their kitchens,

Flipping through TV guides or having a smoke on the balcony 

Or whatever else they do

Or when the fire alarm rings how everyone, yourself included,

Instead of evacuating the building or going back to sleep stands outside

On the balcony

Looks blankly at the firefighters and the shiny trucks 

Listens vaguely for the distorted buzz of the personnel’s walkies