Tick Tock

I run my finger down the glass. Drawing my name in the perspiration. I tell him tomrrow I'll see him again. Cure us both of that transition. From victim to artist. Knowing the words have already begun to dismantle those rooms. Leaving only orphaned staircases. No way for us to return. Nothing left of us except blank pages for the shadows to color in.

I doctor the changes. As any addict would. Wrenching each story from its cumbersome truths. In earthquakes of submission. In suicides of acceptance. I lie. Tell them I feel things I can't anymore. While dead roots break through the pavement. The snarl of stray dogs devouring their pity of a meal. The croak of irony as we bleed ourselves young again. The grin of the rifle as it points. Aims as it should. Bound to see as the bullet would. The throttle of skin in its last few moments to be alive.

A pendulum reciting the years wasted trying to be loved. A picture. A negative. Of someone so close. All I needed to prove. it couldn't happen.

Tick. Tell those staircases to relax.

Tock. The chance was prize enough.