paper pedestal

I imbue too much importance to the thoughts in spite of what I see and know about the world. fragile as forever, years of anger cast into a matchstick frame. the limb man stands to make the shadow of a statue he admires. we balance on a pedestal of headlines folded footsteps from the fire. carbon crackles into clouds. I listen to the psalms I wait too long for. sync my pulse up to the rhythm and shower in their anguish and confessions. all the while we ghost the mirror and read the numbers on the floor.

on the floor to make new shapes. I fold myself closed and open again; down on my back in obsessive compulsions, resculpting the flesh for a god I could never please. the ache wells, a familiar grip around my belly, scrunching smaller into a fist. caught between the unnamable; never being enough and a perennial unwillingness to relinquish the shred of potential I saw in a dream. I venerate the vision hanging on the walls of my sockets like a crucifix. repeat the rituals with toothpaste in my spit.