Winner: Losing Sanction

Even masterpieces have their moments. The glass
slipper eventually breaks, the orca forking the horizon
returns to its wet anonymity. In my dreams the hero
always bleeds a different paper currency I can’t afford
to clean up. But waking is dead oranges, the money
a new version of thirst. I long for the day I don’t
wish jealousy upon my closest friends, sheer admiration
from my loyal lover. Why must I see the ghost
white eyes of loss in others in order to understand
wholeness? This is a wound begging to grow deeper.
A girl with hands full of red magic, still bored.
I cut off until I’m cut loose because I’m so used to
folding a noose, rubbing out the blue dot of a pool cue
on my cheek. Now I look children through their untouched
souls and tell them maybe tomorrow. That maybe bad
isn’t the opposite of good. Maybe it’s a past time,
a buried novel, a word for your father your mother
never quite spat out. Here we are, lord, try to save us.
If we scream it means nothing. If we don’t, we’re lying.