How long it takes to do all the things that can’t be undone, sharpen the antlers and polish the cracked hooves, taxidermy yourself monstrous; how long to staple and stitch pieces of the body together, to electrocute it back to life; how long to learn you are not behind the steering wheel but still you are driving the ambulance, this riot of burned rubber and spun cherries; how long to fall asleep with starlight glittering your face, to wake from the suck of the bottomless black; how long to let sweetened air whole the broken, to climb into the flames and breathe; how long to wellspring, how long for those jangled legs to spring well; how long to swan dive into your wreckage and weeping, your kingdom of heaped garbage, of nails and creeping dirt, how long your wreck, your wrecking, your wrecked; how long to scour blood from your fingernails, to scour your fingernails bloody; how long to still not finish this story, to confess, to say No no no it wasn’t me; how long to say you’ve done every last thing; how long to see it all for the first time again; how long the pain zigging the spine, hot-wiring the nerves; how long to lean into the hurt; how long the fall is, for pulling it close; how long to feel lucky, for the sky to go mirror ball, for it to go black; how long to bulletproof the face; how long the staggering, the glowlight all around you; how long, how long; how long to sing to the endless end—for the darkest nights to go hot and pleasurable, visible with song.