How to Face the Ugly Truth

Dear Ugly Truth

-

You are one

bottle away from me.

-

You are twenty-one

shooters of broken

-

promises. You are a kind

of imitation, a kind of spectral

-

imprint, a kind of

animal in chains,

-

clawing at the air.

You douse me and strike

-

a match. I free fall

like a bird with its

-

wings on fire. I remember you

with cold-hearted shame. Whiskey

-

breath in must-stick breath. And

what is true of spirits is also

-

true of inkblots. I am a colour

shock in response and I am

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nothing in ink but blood

splatters on napkins. What can

-

words do anyway?

This embodied

-

transaction. This hum,

this thing,

-

this ugliness, this

emptiness spit open.

-

Sincerely yours,

Soda & Lime