a gray sky is one that whistles and hums like paper and glass, a stirring pressure mix that is wary and humble, cold cold it holds the sun in damp sheets. Looking up up up and so far up it is a moldy cold sheet flapping in the wind. standing below the bridge, the ragged humble bumbles watch it blow. When their shoes talk, they tape their mouths shut with layers and layers of electrical tape. Every shirt has known their chests for day after day, the fibers have been through water- rain, oceans, vomit, tears, sweat, and city puddles. They were kids once, rough and tumble quiet kids who knew what gravel felt like. Fighters, bloody eyes and knuckles and knees and chipped teeth. He was in love once, a girl with a lavender ribbon and smooth hands that never talked or ate. But she whistled in the wind like a blade of grass, and her eyes were like grey skies. She disappeared behind a dumpster and he didn't follow. A marbled composition notebook, gutted, pages dripping blue blood and layers of paper sticking together in a puddle, swirling black ink that once said "We went to the farm. We picked strawberries. I saw a duck.", soggy pages that are peeling pulp. He doesn't know if his hands will ever be warm again, or know the warmth of a warm thing.