On digging through the mess of spit and memory.
The toil is hard and dark.
It weighs on the heart and stains the hand.
Shame doesn’t just rent your head, it lives in the guts, twisting the bowels
and climbing the spine.
Teeth chew through the gum, nails claw at the palm.
No wonder; does anybody know how to swim through tar eyes wide open?
Trickle, trickle, bruises to the face like the punishment half given half taken
Like the horror echoed through the mind.
The sharp edge will not land, it will hover above like the fear of stopping and the fear of going, still.
What’s to say who deserves forgiveness.
And who would even believe it?
When the gnawing turns inward
I repeat it again and again:
After the oil spill,
The skin is lighter where the hand creases.
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