1. it begins here: you arrayed in splendour, and me mocking
2. you, offering a crown of thorns; i am admittedly heavy-handed
3. as we walk together – the whipping post, the whipping boy,
4. the whip whistles and air seeps through weeping lips
5. as you wear your pain like a robe, purpled and larger than life
6. grasping at the edges of why you even bother anymore
7. with the thud and ping of hammer and nail and what are we building
8. with nary a chance and barely a plan, and here you are gambling
9. it’s all on us after too much too drink, or too little, this emptied vessel
10. pinned against my memory like a butterfly; so beautiful, these scars.
