PAWNED

 

PAWNED

Focus snaps its rusted chain,

lurches wild across jagged fields,

a stray dog with matted fur,

no jangling tags to name it—

no weathered note stitched to its scruff,

scrawled with a path to tether it back.

“There’s no place like home,” they chant,

“Home’s where the heart thumps loud”—

who forged these brittle sayings,

hammered them into dull coins,

flung them like confetti

to blanket every shivering wanderer?  

Home—

a sagging crate stuffed with faded threads,

a chipped stall where water spits cold,

a cavern of clutter,

its walls groaning under the weight

of things I sidestep like broken glass.

I stitch alibis from frayed twine,

stretch the horizon taut as a bowstring,

fleeing a lair that clamps my ribs—

a coiled spring,

bristling with sweat and shadow,

where I perch on a razor’s edge,

ready to melt into arms

or lunge with bared teeth,

each a trembling spark

beneath a sky thick as tar.

Wasted to a wisp,

gut echoing with hunger’s growl,

I’ve gnawed too long

on the husk of your vows,

on the splintered wreck of “us”—

those shimmering mirages

you conjured with a conjurer’s flourish,

their colors swirling like oil on water.

You draped them over me,

a velvet shroud to hush my doubts,

luring my lids to droop,

promising dreams

that bloomed like poppies—

only to wither,

leaving me stranded,

eyes wide in the ash