The failing use of my right hand isn't actually the failing use of my right hand it's just another way to tell the time and I'm ticking so I've been picking myself up at bars with a bottle in each hand I only make plans with myself for the day after next but by the time the sun swings back around into position I forget the context of why I asked myself out in the first place did I think I was going to score? I let a stranger pour me one more she says my name is Sara doesn't take much more than that to start a relationship My darling, Sara cleans rooms for a living giving her youth and beauty to dirt and dust understands more than most that family must be the foot you put forward first you must weather the worst together but having neber met her family she places love above all else then protests that I use the word love too freely in poems and I should really just say what I mean and I suppose what I mean most is that I'm trying she's been buying me time on a maxed out credit card arms scarred from selling her own blood to pay down the debt tells me she doesn't mind going broke just so long as I can giver her a little swear she says try so I do my best impression of a pen and when every problem looks like a page I commit ink to paper the worth of the words that come out determines my wage I've been making enough to pay her the compliment of not quitting. of not sitting when standing is required she only asks that I put the effort n and in return she's willing to pin a paper heart to her chest then do her best impression of a target She tells me that effort is the siamese twin of success so when everyone else looks like a wrong answer she says she'll settle for being my best guess so we lie in bed like a mess that someone's been meaning to clean for the large part of a long while we lie there like a pile of dirty laundry and how we'll ever come clean is beyond me so we don't she says it's supposed to be dirty and if by the end you haven't hurt me then you didn't try so I do my best impression of a surgeon cutting purple hearts out of my own use my veins like thread then have hurt sewn to our skin like medals because when the bleeding stops and that dust settles all we have are our wounds to wear like decorations upon our chest Sara does her best impression of a war tells me not to count my pride among casualties because maybe faith means never keeping score she says there's more to effort than just switching gears and in terms of what one should give in life sweat holds more value than tears you have to try and even though the failing use of my right hand means I'll never land a knockout punch in the first round life is composed of sound and fury whatever noise is left in me will be twice as loud when I try so I plug myself into the idea of going the distance and I amplify My darling, Sara has a throat like a vase she sings her words into bloom has voice like perfume it's been sticking to my clothes so everyone knows where I've been sleeping she's been keeping me so close you could use my body for evidence pull her fingerprints as proof that she's been on top so often she's starting to look like my roof but a real sexy roof and she doesn't leak unless you count the crying she does that sometimes worries that she's just a back up plan My darling, Sara. I've lived long enough to learn too many choices can destroy a man I will make no exodus I'll be around long enough to watch uncertainty bid us farewell the echo our names into the crater caused by the impact of when our lack of conviction fell you've never had to sell me on the idea of absolute certainty in the trustworthiness of another the first and only time you met my mother mom said \"I like the way she looks at you\" and I echoed back to her that I liked it too. eyes like recycle bin blue Sara looks at broken things as if she can make them new more than a few times I've caught her staring caught her wearing a smile reserved for those busy making plans. Sara believes that distance is a fundamental that can be side-stepped by a piece of string and two tin cans and I remember when my tin can rang. they said there's no family to speak of so love is next in line and there's not a lot of time but she's asking for her boyfriend in the cab to the hospital I feel my heart bend as if bracing for impact so I do my best impression of a man and face fact. it's supposed to hurt. a doctor does his best impression of the truth and spares me his attempts to skirt around the issue. they can't stop the bleeding and the failing use of Sara's heart isn't actually the failing use of Sara's heart. it's just another way to tell the time. My darling, Sara I was holding your hand when you died and even though the failing use of my right hand prevented me from feeling you leave. I tried.