The Ink Blurring

I will build us a house

Of paper scraps and ink

Our own universe on pages

Watch it come alive as I rip them

Off the notebook spine

Fold it up

Send it flying as airplanes

Through the battered city

The persistent breeze heralding

Rain that will doom us

But not yet

Thread it together as stars

Mixed with the string lights

Leave them running until dawn

Or until the small bulbs flicker

And die one by one

Our light going out with them

It is as inevitable as the thaw

Some day the river must freeze

Some day the river must 

Run fast again

And us but a paper boat on

The rapids

Tossed high and wild

Ever close to drowning

The ink blurring on the hull

Soaking our machinations

To their razor-thin cores

And as all things 

Collapse around us

Peeling away like moldy wallpaper 

We stop writing

Accept our fate