take care
I cannot write the words, not yet.
They slur, they drench the page
and fall into the air like
tears that drop and desiccate.
Cramped against their own regret,
they stumble down into the
nothing left behind.

Where are they now,
impossible Utopian reels of words
worn and exchanged without receipt
that brought us to this unsilent room.
We watched behind the glass
in a chamber where forever was unborn.

Arms extended outward as I lie
prone in a dead man's float
I listen to the sounds above the
water line, numb as you speak
numb as you mutter
—Take Care.

They mar, they blur.
Fragments of chalky white.
They stain, they cripple the soul.
Take Care. Kind sentiments that
curl the pallid paint of time
and peel it back to words I cannot find,
to pain I cannot write.


Mia Moore