A thin fog escapes my chapped blue lips,
like the ghost of a joint shared years ago.
But oxytocin no longer kisses my brain—
it sizzles to silence in my lungs,
a hollow signal grasping at static.

Many will mistake it for awakening

The lucky ones will call it forgetting

But really, they either hoard their declarations
like relics of a dying faith
or bury them beneath their own doubt.

Here, I fear I exist only
in the quantum flicker of a two-
sided coin.

I taste copper—

My teeth trace the fault line of my lower lip

Split skin yielding without protest

 Something in me feels tarnished,
like a penny rubbed smooth by too many hands.

Boots kick up dust in the distance—
self-righteous soles pressed in lockstep, branding the earth beneath them.

Black tar oozes through the slates of my white picket fence,

Unstoppable, unwelcome, choking the dream it swore to protect.

Without thought, I press my tongue 

to the wound,

As I let the rust settle