open-ended outlines, or the skeletal cartographers map out the present

weakness sucks dry the bones of conversation
leaving us
hollow and empty, each still needing the other’s skeleton
we share a good laugh now and then
i guess, but
never
at the biggest joke.

there’s something to be said for
intimacy with borders. we
have
become
cartographers, etching out our
boundaries
deciding
instead of discovering. our ink is
the atmosphere of bitten lips, discomfort manifest
and tangible. we write on what we call new slates, but
the pencil marks erased
are still visible.

open-ended outlines, or the skeletal cartographers map out the present by levi hatle is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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