Published in Atomic Flyswatter Vol. 1, 2020Withered and acrid are these stinging-nettle boys. Their shallow, blackened sneers cuff my ankles in red laceand my mother, pitiless, shrugs the blood awayhaving clearly given up on my wearing shoes. I ran by night, from what I didnot know. By that first pillowing of dawn I found my legs etched raw,as if by dying captive men that count the dayson walls of tide choked caves,and prison cellsand on the ribs of tombswhen one gets mixed up in that unsavory businessof being buried alive.They scored my skin to play a round of tic-tac-toe to pass their time incarcerate, and stillI sing only of their thorns.