Loathe

A mask-less mask

To hide how you conquer women

It's as though you're covetous

of your dead father's skull

sunkeneyed and long lost to pasture

descending over the sacred forgotten

you who can only ever desecrate

who implores others to hate

with the rustling of charred bones

all the stray bullets lodged in your back

still the wounds of kindness remain aghast

with a ransom escaping skyward

as you drag the last piece of yourself

out from the black seawater, brimming

from a rotten jaw grinding in protest

and you call to your mother

the year's salt in your words, your wounds

a cowardly sound neglected

as water neglects what it drowns

until one of you fades

the ghostly fume of a boy