The Color of Forgotten

In long daydreams that were too real. In empty skins she presumed would fit. The wedge of panic acting as a fulcrum. To mask the weight of the moment on tired faces.

The perfume of mosquitoes in its bite. As the darkness probed her. With the primitive anesthetic of loneliness. The little dolls in their little dresses waiting for some child to pick them up. Spare them the tedium of empty cradles. Those fragile cradles that continue to stir long after the doll is dead.

Stalling the years in unfinished sentences.

A calm abortion. A half tied gown. Her paper underwear smelling so red. A hooker of a virgin. A suspect of a lover. With ballet hands and a leaden kiss.

A banquet of tumorous cells straining to reach the full torque of their cancer. The long journey. From thought to touch. Everything is dead before it even reaches us. Every moment is gone. All colored in. Before we ever see the lines.

All the ways we find to travel back before only kill them faster.

A series of miscarriages was all she was. One dead child bleeding into the next.

Her life only a microscope through which she could see herself dying up close.