Some things are meant
to happen at night
out of all light
The edges of it look like a river where you swam, or like the sky from a film you saw about horses. Those bits have been pasted together to make this place. On the first day you realise you cannot crawl into a rock.
Getting shot at in the sun
doesn’t stay incongruous
for long
You wore your new school socks outside once, without shoes and made holes in them. Your mother looked like vinegar and told you about waste. That must be what panic and anger taste like swilling around your molars.
The first laugh
you have out here
feels like sex
Your ears begin to read the differences between a pop and a crack. When you are told to move up a hill, another larger, silent you, wants to know, are you fucking insane? But you don’t want to be left alone, so you go.
You go to sleep at war
you wake up and go
to war, it’s not far