_______________________________________ I must have fallen in love with a romanticized version of myself, like flesh through a flower tattoo. __ Skull-Etcher, when I looked in the mirror today, I was an eye adjusting to an old photo-ID card under laminate. a crush like feeling the sidewalk through the pink gum of deep-fried shrimp crushed into said sidewalk, in a landlocked town. the moment I knew a long walk wouldn’t help, that “horses fuck inside me.” __ so I threaded something like “feed me to the forest” through my voice, & I hurled it— upward—at the sky—all sky— —a caw unhinged from its crow. & in a downward spiral landed in my coat-pocket, where it re-stitched into a warm handful of present tense, like the reassuring try of a hand on your shoulder following a surgeon’s poor prognosis: as one part ghost / one ...