There are moments that leave footprints on your soul,
Abrasions upon your dignity,
When harbingers of the negative
impart with a lasting kiss
a grief tattoo
lest you forget that you ever hurt.

Breathing of a wounded wind
is enough to remind you how badly it hurt,
enough to sear the memory into scar

I own no more of the sky than you,
yet that which surrounds me
is mine, and mine alone.
The question that remains,
the one that no answer will still,
is what do we do with the phantoms,
the ones who whip and play
within my hair,
the ones who cry out
with the voices of hemispheres
and speak directly to my blood?