skin split and spilt 
original sin as the flowers wilt 
and innocence was just a season
lost to time 
molted and castaway on a raft 
with riffraff and 
single serving friends 
(those sweet summer children)

and what was I 
but to bear the bolts of anchorage
bereft of the warmer tides that came before: 
a rusting high water line, to be sure. 

bracing, of soul and spirit-pillars 
bent from upright, but not by the knee
not yet 

time is not mine to be made 
to submit