Red

[candibat]

red sand
piled up like massive graves
for massacred earth.
empty houses spring forth
from empty fields
like an unstoppable plague.

we drive through without spoken conversation.
thoughts and disappointment, frustration
swirl wildly, ruining the mood,
just as the wind rips apart my hair.

as the sun sets lower
and the music grows louder,
so does the distance from
one side of the car to the other.

skeleton metal arms
reach up with desperate,
clutching hands from below.

and i am torn between the person i want to be
and the person it turns out i am.