Drizzle, drop.

Honeysweet heavy.

Flesh to skin, rewind.

Bile back in throat.

Lunge and mesh,

Hot, thick. Tear, kill.

Enter: silk, end with sweat.

Run. Down with plunge,

veins alive, quick noise: Stop.

Whisper wind, muffled mouth.

Unleash. beating; release, heal.

Repeat til sore.

This time yesterday, on the other side of the clock,

it was strange.

The moon was supposed to be awake,

but the crickets were yelling and throwing things.

When you ride or run down this avenue, shadows follow.

I always said to bring matches.

The seconds tick and the moon bids you hello

at the proper time for once.

But the crickets won't stop and you fear them to jump in your ears and overtake your brain.

So stepping down the sidewalk becomes delicate business, and no one's watching,

in case you fall and break the road.

Still, at this hour, you will risk the abyss

opening under you; and you tiptoe faster.

She's a crescent now, but graciously still gifting light.

She gives so much.

The insects now ride on my shoes and my shoulders.

They're afraid too.

The dirt road throws pebbles at my head,

and ducking makes running difficult.

It's dark, and it's late,

and now the crickets have been replaced by moths, the useless things.

All flutter, no flight.

I always leave a little bit of coffee in the bottom of the cup.

'Cause it's like a cliffhanger.

Maybe I'll have another cup

but probably not, because I don't like coffee very much.

But I'd hate to tell the coffee that, and surely it'd be a lonely cup if I drank it all down.

This way it has hope, even if it is a false hope.

This way it gets let down softly. Coffee takes awhile to get cold.

And by then everyone's forgotten about it anyway, and it'll just be lost in the corner of a diner after 2 AM on a Thursday night and sit.

and sit.

and sit.

It'l grow accustomed to the pattern of cracks on the wall

and the awful orange of the sticky counters,

and then the real shame will be when it finally is found.

Tossed away under banana peels and unfinished pieces of pie.

But it doesn't mind,

Even if it does wish it belonged to someone with a life more eventful + exciting.

It was a faithful cup of coffee, and its purpose was served.

You're an old windsong, that's where I know you from!

Repeatedly I have beckoned them to come, to grow,

but flightless here I am.

Now it's a trade. My feet for your familiarity.

It's a chasing game, life is, on the ground.

I've yet to come close enough to put a bell around your neck or offer you solace.

Still, it's the melody in a morning voice and

the whisper of fingers feeling out a hello on my shoulders

where you burn the brightest.

You're...oddly dim in person.

But you wear your face so well, I don't mind.

If I ever tire of you, I'll pop onto the porch

and see playing in the trees

and feel you in my hair

and you'll be renewed.

Try and find some comfort while you rest in me.

Paper, polly. Rough. Ingrained.

It's the stuff you could feel under your nails.

Remove it, you remove yourself, your truths.

Don't dilute us. Secrets are people too.

Really we're a nonchalant string of words,

something like a shock from a knife in a socket.

You knew we were there, just not on our sleeping schedule.

You could've asked.

No move, no plan left unposed.

It''s back to the papers now. Back to the comfortably unfamiliar.

Sense naivety in my movements. Unsure but curious, certainly.

It's been a long day and perhaps it's time to do the laundry &

leave the world well enough alone.

It's tired too.

It's a fitting color, if I do say so myself. Which I am, because you're not asking.
And yes, I had a great day.
No, of course I'm not telling you the truth.
Sure, you could call it my fault. After all, I didn't say anything.
Neither did you.

Yes it is childish. Yes, it was wonderful.
No, I don't particularly care.
I should stop lying to you?
You first!

This is exactly why I only talk to myself.
No questions asked, no answers needed.
When you blend into the wallpaper,
Everything falls into place.
Neat little pieces my fingers can handle.
Don't have to worry about those cuts anymore. No, no.
All done.

It's that black. That endless, smothering, velvet night that weighs me down. If I were to reach out my hand to you, feet away, I feel as though I'd shatter some sacred pact between me and the world. I'd be ripping a hole the size of the universe in this delicate web between us. Between every pair like us. and they didn't ask for that. It wouldn't be fair. Yes, I've completely disregarded what I think you'd have to say about it,
but I'm usually wrong anyways.

I'm walking now, and it's starry curtains rolling all around, and the strength my broken arms are asking for to push through them is tempting me to turn around.

As it turns out though, I didn't.

Don't wonder. There's just more black over here.
Peaceful. Whole. Unyielding.