i am memorizing you.

dip the tips of my fingers in the slips of your lips

travel the cracks like roads so i can make a map in my head

blinking traffic lights but no sound.

no sound

except your flutterbreath, except for the skin-caressing stutter of a weary traveller

skin-scraped knees, and red, red fingers

freezing, dipped down in cold month depression

your eyes bright against the headlights. searching

beseeching baby boy, wrapped up in your plaid scarf, drowning like a refugee

a foreign visitor in a foreign land

you're just visting, travelling the lonely roads at night

looking for human hostels like me

to rest your ever-weary limbs.