Criss crossing
railroad tracks
there and back
it was nice moving my fingertip
up and down that line,
feeling each tie and rivet.

It may not have seemed like much
of anything to you-
maybe you've been touched like that
so many times before...
but moving over those little lacerations
those long rows of tiny indentations,
resonated like the grinding of metal wheels
along steel rails.

I'd like my cuts to be so visible
that you could stitch them up
with your kisses
and the hot glue of your tongue.

They did well to mend you
and send you back into this world
of scrapes and bruises-
even if it does come at the cost
of many a trampled heart.

Did I misread the braille?
was it for you
just another silly song
played out on the rotating bumps of your music box?
Your scars belie a strength
I haven't seen in quite a while.

perfectly undone,
a spool of thick dark spider silk,
your hair in waves,
draped over a landscape i'd admired
but never really seen before.
And the part most native to my hands,
like the trails of little bird feet in the sand,
or ridges left by the tide,
were those lovely lingering lines.