Here, on the borderlands, we live in paper houses

Sleep on rocks and logs and bathe in the rain.

It is a striking existence.

We are made substantial by our deeds and voices.

Water clouds the world with wet and weather

Brings toads writhing up through the mud,

Cactus into bloom.

Pain brings clarity to our dreams and

Staggers through our days like a drunkard

On a ship in a howling storm.

The tossing straightens its path into our hearts.

We breathe the air of desperation.

In the smoky evenings of fire,

Singed by sparks we rage and stomp

among the glowing coals.

Grunting, we pummel the charred wood

sending the showering cinders skyward.

This cannot last.

These days of abandon

that scream against the black pit of forgetting.

We will not remember when we wake to the street sounds

And the abyssal meandering chatter of loose minded drainpipes

That dawn brings dripping and humming, louder and louder

until brutal wordless chant leaps away.

And we are separated into the day.