the burnt offerings of her heart like shark’s teeth blackened by selfish anger and the skins of snakes left abandoned on your doorstep. you try to fit the ashes together into a coherent whole but instead breathe in the soot of all that you were and could’ve been. old. older. sitting by the window along the highway watching cars skid through the onramp as hubcaps shot out and clanged against the curb. tears welled up in your eyes because you knew even then that your innocence was gone, you were already gone and it was only going to get worse. remorse without regret, regret without remorse, or something else entirely? he had married your mother just before thirty and all this violence that you now are has been rearing it’s head since you did as well. when will he stop dying? when will you learn to live peacefully and without pain? an accumulation of wounds and the wounded, of guilt and clenched teeth, the rage goes on indefinitely and your children grasp at your fists to make them into hands to hold across the divide.