it's the dried water from under the bridge, the cold concrete beside where the sewer flows that soaks up its edges and holds it until the gray turns to brown.
it's the sharp taste of the drips that starts below your uvula and drifts into your throat, settling in your stomach for fuck all.
it's the way we can't stand without swaying with that liquor in our middles, as if the bottles decided to clink together all at once to make a tune, screaming 'jump, spin, run, go faster' and our ears make it muffled so all we can muster is that simple swaying.
until it kicks our guts.
it's the feel of fingers on a shoulder, a palm on the top of a head, assuring lips in a mop of hair that is so different than anything else.
it's the way the ocean can be traded for a pile of clothes and some unwashed sheets.
the last untouched forest on earth for a side glance and a loose hand on a hip.
the sky for a freudian slip and a mindless threat.
it's the index card and the stray bits of sand and the shirt in a men's small.
but it's also the screams at passing cars past the fourth morning hour and the glass wedged between the fabric of mismatched socks and the sign that says twelve feet in a bold font when it really means twenty or so.
it's the outdated lights on a tree in front of that one screen-less window.
it's that disaster you didn't know you were affirming.
it's the way that every single time you are about to explain something detrimental, you stop.
words missing in dead air, the edging of breath.
the few sips to relax versus the gulps to cope.
the money you said you wouldn't spend.
the slow drifting of people who sleep only a doorway away from one another.
the false promise of freedom stored in two pairs of wheels.
the question of whether it is for ego, pity, or actual human attraction.
it's the whispering from under the bridge.
it's the misplaced wind from under the bridge.
it's the dull odor from under the bridge.
it's the rot that matches the brain from under the bridge.