How Many Miles?

Suspended in the lungs of a moment that refuses to exhale—

that’s the suffocation.

We beat our bloodied hands against this cage of bone;

we are here together but we arrived alone.

There are no elegies on dissonance road—

that’s the revelation.

The eye that knew peers through an open door

that is closed;

the other looks forward and back,

seeking knowledge from the footsteps

it rejects as its own.

Tragedy is a dream without the makeup—

sometimes the face of the future.

We mourn our losses and ache for our homes;

we are passengers by nature.

We reach our hands through—

fingers interlocking with former selves.

We weep, for the touch is foreign.

Unknown.

How many miles between yesterday and today?

Rendered unrecognizable, we beg.

We beg. We beg. We beg to stay.