movement

i follow hollow roads through streets that ache beneath my feet we feign in dance together holding strings pulled tightly between us so thin they could break with one wrong movement and i repeat this motion endlessly like habit carved into bone not broken by weakness but by the exhaustion of carrying feeling for too long whispers drift through time echoes of a man lost somewhere between understanding and becoming between what this is and what he hoped it could be i find myself living there between what could happen and what already slipped away maybe that is all life really is movement constant movement people brushing past one another trying to hold meaning long enough for it to leave a mark we escape into desire into the memory of older nights times we frolicked carelessly before fear learned our names before silence became easier than honesty and i repeat those memories often turning them over in my mind like a treasure chest buried so deeply it no longer belongs to the earth but only to me small enough now to fit into the palm of my hand these wrists can only carry so many memories before trembling the ash settling into skin the way fire burns quietly at first before consuming everything around it some wounds never scream they smolder deep beneath the places we tried hardest to leave them behind nails against a chalkboard eyes adjusting to darkness dice shattered by force chance destroyed before it could speak and we throw ourselves into life recklessly uncontrollably as though destruction itself might somehow prove we existed but maybe that is life sometimes just force just movement broken bones healing crooked wet hands from crossing rivers we were never certain would lead anywhere still we crossed them anyway because something inside us would always rather drown searching for meaning than stand untouched on the shore