The Distance Between

These miles devour me
my skin peels in shreds like
remnants of tire treads
a smear on the roadside
like a bloodstain to be washed
away in the rain.

Pieces of myself collected
to be displayed as souvenirs
stretched too thin across
vast distances.

Eventually I lose myself
in the landscape
becoming nothing more
than another piece of forgotten
scenery.

My comings and goings
beginnings and endings
intermingled within interstates
pressed to the pavement
scars like potholes
shatter through my bones.

There is no air left in my lungs
deflated with only exhaust
burning my throat coughing up
gasoline and bleeding out antifreeze
with no where left to turn
stranded and abandoned.

Gun Metal Black

I feel the gun metal

pressed to the back 

of my skull,

a pressure following 

wherever I go.

Leaving an aftertaste 

of bitter metallic,

sometimes a sweet temptation,

savoring the cold hardness.

Knowing all it would take 

is a flicker of a thought 

to set the trigger off. 

But you are still there

even in the silences,

so I swallow down the pill

like a bullet. 

Close my eyes 

count to ten,

dig my nails into my skin 

and prepare for another day,