Toothpick houses in toothpick towns
glued to toothpick people with toothpick hearts.
The lights were vacant, the darkness sneered.
We held them up to the sliver of something
and wished for them to become.

There were nights when only stars
starred in the show,
and twilights that stole our fingers
fighting to intertwine.
We watched shadows dance
where there was nothing else
but toothpick people with toothpick hearts.

Asphyxiated,
we drew the silence out of time
like secrets held in wood and fire.
If only we could pretend
that painted colors meant painted lives.

If only we could pretend that we never crawled over those splintered societies
that we never crashed into the empty bodies
that we never frustrated the phantom lives
then we could believe
that there was reality
in those toothpick houses in toothpick towns,
and those toothpick people with toothpick hearts
were not ourselves
at all.