Healing Machines

“Our bodies are, if nothing else, healing machines” –Cassidy Bowman

Our bodies are, if nothing else
on death row
waiting for the gas.

In Texas, praying for a piece of pink paper,
or a pardon
from a lover,
or a friend
who wants to
watch us go,
a mother or father to politely blow their nose.

Nightly we accept our plastic wrapped,
pistol-whipped complacency
brush quietly past strangers
(our hushed eyes avoiding the dangerous truth)
that we are afraid to take the simple steps into the
dark womb of human communication.

Our bodies, long stretched when laid out,
internal organs playing the loud pulse of our spinning thoughts
caught grinding gears in the cement mixers of our minds,
chattering our rotting teeth like loaded dice,
between which we mutter under the lonely breath of alcohol
“When,
if ever,
will it rain?”

(And so,
we wait.)

Clenched fists eventually calm under liquid rhythms
clammy palms reach to touch innocent skin
twisting handshakes into tunnel vision pyramids.

We find ourselves in black rooms staring at blank screens
begging for a connection we refuse to embrace;

wound in, (lies)
bound by, (time)
mummified but still alive,
praying to be saved.