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What are facts if they lack
truth in telling? He was the bad lover I left
five weeks and sixty two months before
the March hail behaved like July and everyone
succumbed to citrus words and coral colored lip gloss
that shined like a silver watch in waters shallow
with guppies looking for a bite, barracudas
for purple blood so thick it shoved the sand
aside before his foot could find your throat.
What is the warning
shared by mothers on the beach
when their daughters spot men with cameras
walking too slowly by? He was brutal
but unskilled, a successful punch
lacking cause or defense like a tree
the wind sends onto a sleeping home
busy with inconsequential dreams, vivid truths
we only tell ourselves.
Ben Kline lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he writes about the modern digital existence and his dark Appalachian past. His work has appeared in KNACK Magazine, Headmaster Magazine, Birds Piled Loosely, and apt.