(coal marker)

My brain is a lump in the back of his throat. a word. a hope. a breath lost under the waves of inevitability his life has turned out time and again even when he did his goddamn schoolyard best to make a change for the better. to make something of the rest.

But tonight there's just a broken ear and a crumbling ashtray to attet to another day spent hobbling back from the brink of extinction.