acton, ca

i found a toad in the desert.
crawling like a broken baby under my trailer.
i cut him open with my pen knife
just to see his insides drain.
were they like mine?

at night in between the hay stacks my
cigarette longed for a single mistake of the wind.
but it was in the scorching summer days
that the wind hissed dangerously
around my toiling body.

the growing abscess of my heart oozed
and mixed with the tar in my lungs.
i'm certain that was when i truly lost you.
between the stacks, as it were,
loving you even as your
growls grew and my
black eyes grew blacker.
the injured bird i found,
eyes bloody,
wings broken,
seemed to suit me.
as it were.
as it should be.