Sycsta

we knew, in instances, those who fell and those who stood. the stories that persisted, that ground themselves into the dirt, the path burned by passing, the footstep crush of grass and convenience. that's where we found the wolf, persisting in what we knew to be incorrect. it wasn't, but it took us years                to realise.

we swore much, dedications to gods, lower case or otherwise, and gave our fealty, blood bound, neatly cut and stacked to causes, nations, people.                  we knew what we'd break, and what we wouldn't. it was a renaissance of creative interpretation, legalese, fine print of promises sworn by an honest, but unwilling                 heart.

figure eight of flowing ink, words of slate, rock cliff crushed to nothing in our hands, an apology that vines through conversations, faced and denied, refuted need in the name of hurts not made, but felt, till time brings understanding -- what and who the words are for isn’t always clear while they’re being said.

shift from life to live alongside the sediment, the rock we sought to know. changes drip through the earth and touch all that’s come before. care take the darkness, burrow beneath the wreckage, love places that can’t be touched by the living. walk with the dead, what they were before the winds shifted and left them here. here, here we found the quiet.

i will allow myself to be furious about this. to feel it build in the blood, uproar of upcoming vindication, correction woefully ignored or misunderstood. it is what we are, what i wish i was. i don't have a right to this, the rage is borrowed, bound to a story i have not lived.

let's make a go of this, morning one, bringer of light. you, most beloved, and us, the shale. impermanent mollusc lives, washing up across your shores. what does that feel like? we knew what you did in spilling blood in heaven, but the why would be nice.

wolf, you brought me fresh silence stretched and torn with little pockets of gravity and star-stuff. it’s mostly new, i think, more deliberate and considered than i’m used to. we’ll come to know it well, wear out the spine till it refuses to close completely, in well-read protest. sketch some battle lines in fitted quiet.

silence, insurrection. over hilltops we've swarmed, down city streets, waved placards in front of more or less everywhere. after all that noise, silence feels alien and yet we're getting used to it. indifference is the face of god, lower case, observant and uncaring. the fury grows despite ourselves, and all we say comes to pass, and nothing's done. i'm just writing, doing nothing, i've no claim to struggle other than that i made for myself. i am owed nothing and they are owed the world. calamity woke us - below, always below. corridors, halls, all paths eventually twisted to us. now they'll twist for us. the water grows dark, castle walls

stand amongst, bare thought, honest.        it’s all you’ve got, rainfall, thunder, giants.  guide, bring us – yourself – to edges, yours, jagged little tears.   learn the precision of them, run hand along the frills and cuts, then, then you’ve a map, and nothing on the road can surprise you.