Beautiful Bones

By Alix Olson

On Independence Meal

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So, is this what it comes down to

At the hot center of our globe

Past the ice age, past the stone

What it comes down to it seems is survival

And that is you versus me, somehow

Two species headlocked in some primitive passion

Both knowing natural selection is bound to bring one of them down

And when we said we loved, we took each other at our word

I mean who were you and I to clarify the context of that verb

And so locked deep inside that safety box grew this fear of each other

Like how our mouths would cross their arms and sit and sneer at each other

You know, a dragon bears her teeth when she is all out of fire

And we were all out of fire, i guess, by then

Frozen in good intention

Little icicles of hope clinging to our lips

But no sound would come out, only little puffs of breath

And we licked each other's wounds until our tongues were iron-clad

And mine crawled into my lungs, and hung there, heavy and sad

And evolution, it seemed, loomed on the horizon

As we sauntered past the dinosaurs who all had their eyes on us

And the continent that we'd invented, seemed to much to prove

So we scampered to the edges, there was nowhere else to move

So, i guess this is a sorry for my tedious reductions

My arrogant assumptions that life should fit on a page

And i guess this is a thank you for reminding me

That we never intended to be silver screen heroines

So it's not like we screwed up and got the story line all wrong

Folks like us we tend to make the plot up as we go along

And perhaps that is the only habit that will stave off our extinction

So I name that habit freedom and I claim it as a privilege

For these two species headlocked and hurdling headstrong through our history

And piecing back the beautiful bones

At the hot precious globe of their what's to be

At the hot precious globe of their what's to be

Just a pair of beautiful bones, beautiful bones