they laugh when you cough up blood,
splattering the dusty, crumbling soil of South Dakota.
you can blame my fists for that;
knuckles bony and brutal
and my lips a mocking sneer.
here in the badlands,
we wear sun-stained denim
and profess our teenage romance under a range of heavenly blue.
you make love to me in the dry night;
my spine arched, eyes lolled back so far i can see the galaxy and all of its stars.
by morning, i'm rotten fruit.
stained and ravaged, left to slither into the cracks of the soil.
do you know what it's like to wear foreign skin?
because of you, because of this cursed land,
i do.
