Bareboned and backward. You lay me horizontal in grass that is barely there. It is dying, just like us. We melt under an apricot sun in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of somewhere. When civilization boils and blazes, you drag me into the middle of nowhere with you. You trace down the center of my body as if it is my spine, hoping to find what is left of me. Time after time, I stop tingling and twitching from you. I have become as spineless as the doe is for the hunter. You trace me until I am comatose. I wonder where you will bury me. You rest in the nook between my chest and stomach for just a little bit longer, timing my heartbeat as if you have already lost me. You debate whether to use my body as a canoe or a coffin. Either way, you want to be inside me. Though my heart is cold and my lips are frosted, you carry me like I am the last living lavender. Between a fallen city and a county line, you pull me into a river of rocks and rain. It’s not raining outside, but it’s raining between us. You despise the space and curse the cosmos. Though you are a man of the wild, you have lost your sense of direction in catastrophe. You still try to use me as your compass. For the first time in light years, fear smokes and smears from your eyes. Sticks and stones are no longer good enough shelter. It is the first time you let yourself cry and go hungry. The apricot sun turns amber and you weep under me like a willow tree. Bareboned and backward, we lose our lungs together.