Distance

Haunted backpacks are donated to
kids who can’t afford their own, and they
walk through the halls with specters
coming out of their spines.
They arrange the world in lines making
loud machinery to shave away any remaining
curved edges. The tops of mountains make their
pupils spin, but they’re confident that in a few
years they’ll get there.
We are contracted to each other from the moment we
are born with invisible chains that chill the skin,
and make it difficult to step out and have a smoke break.
The statues of people who killed for us remind us daily
that nothing can get done without death. They hold their
swords in their stone hands and point them towards
the places we’ve always wanted to go but couldn’t
because of distance or the timing.