PaintedLips

We marked the deaths on a map in little black tallies, every day we counted the numbers and they had come to a strong incline. You sat in the dust by the flames playing with a cattail and you asked me “When will it be over?” The smoke drifted into open sky above us and I tried to count the stars. The map was held together by rivers and railroads and lakes. And we were held together by a commonplace drive: Hope. The poem in your eyes had no backbone and it was falling apart at the seams and it made you tired and sad and hopeless. The map is held together by little black tallies on the edges from an old charcoal pencil. And