Destroyers come and go, leave splinters stuck in flesh. The invisible ones so hard to tweeze. Bathe in alcohol, seek where it burns. Trust rusts, cowers in your heart’s dark corners.

The well-dressed destroyer is hard to spot, but look for the smile. It’s crooked and false. Talk seeps like oil, slick to the ears, popping with heat. We drink it up, let it drip down, leaving holes in its wake.

Enter the fixer with boom and detergent. Too late to scrub. Too late to contain. Casualties cauterize the causeway. Volunteers move in with murkier motives. High tide beckons, we retreat to the hill.

Those despoiled blend in with the rest. Open their arms like mechanical dolls. Destroyers long gone, wreckage wake trailing, hidden from view but for a few.

I want to retrace the lines—help consecrate, recreate, rehydrate the husks.

I know that smile.