zero at the bone

e. dickinson and s. joyner, making sense to me tonight.
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A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him, -did you not?
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun, -
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

I was drunk, I didn't let on
As I stood before your door at dawn
I guess I might have awaken the dogs
Because the shadows started coughing them out

So I put my hands into my hair
And I pulled and let it hurt
There was a light going out somewhere
I thought it hear through the wood

That held the house together
That kept me out here in the cold
I knew the sun was going to change the weather
But I was looking she never would show

I was jamming my hands in my pockets
And I was thinking about throwing a stone
But if I had the courage I knew that I lost it
I was too scared to walk myself home

So lit out on a concrete rail
And I made my way through the dead park
I could still here the cicadas wailing
As the morning fog rolled off the dark

I had the whole night in my lungs
I was breathing so hard and so fast
I scored one for the catholic girls
And I tried to stuff it all in a box

You know the kind that comes with a key
You can throw in the lake or bury somewhere
I though about the kid you knew before me
And how he held onto that lock of your hair

He kept it tied up in a sad rubber band
In his dresser drawer on the right side
Now he walks around with strands of you all over him
As if you were still spending the night

I was jamming my hands in my pockets
I swear I was zero at the bone
If I felt my courage making a come back
I was drunk, I didn't let on

Cause I was doing like my pa had always done
I was trying to rise back from the dead
Saying all those ghost prayers before the storm
Hoping God won't hit me over the head

I guess I was out for a revelation
I was kicking out against the darkness
I had dew all over my body
From sleeping in a ball under a park bench

I was so sure I would never make it
I remember like it happened only yesterday
I don't know why I'm still holding onto it
Don't hearts break nearly every other day

When you try to make the sweetness last
Cause everything happens so fast
And your waiting with half dry eyes
For something to fall or something to rise