lank tangles

i was always so secure in the things i knew were mine, always so damn sure, that i'd wander off aimlessly without a care at whim because i'm confident i'd come back and find them exactly where and how i'd left them. there was no fear, because in my mind, in every sense, they were, are, and for my lifetime, truly, absolutely, desperately mine.

now the immaterial pieces of my insides are suddenly, harshly, like brittle stitches in worn, ancient clothes bled dry some eternities ago by the unforgiving sun --- bare, weak, so easy to rip into insignificant shreds.

irony has waited long, and without my knowing it i have presented her bony, ash-painted fingers my bare throat.