flannel hands

It matters less that there is sorrow. More that these waves are felt, so many miles away. That the vibrance of sweated nights, generosity, the gentleness still shudders to the bone. I cannot help but picture wider, wide-eyed skies. I cannot help but slip inside of such small scenes. What I do know is my agile, insurmountable self is what stands between battered dreams, or jaws hung open by a time that ticked away unwarranted, unwanted, and yet still warm against my chest; dried through my heart. It is a time scented with both spice and human, flannel hands. And here, in covers and coats of downy dust upon my skin, I can close my eyes and build there the home already stomped upon by my feet, my fists inside: build that better, sensible self--a self I should admire but still shudder at, as I could never adore. And adoration is, still, the only cardboard box I have kept through the years, such love bent out of shape and shorn of all its gems.