The Oath of Infection

He made funny faces and we laughed. He made sad ones and we cried. Very much like puppets are the voice of the people behind them.

I like my music loud. My sex louder still. Anger never lies. Not like love does. Anger tells the truth when touch pretends it knows what we want. Cut grass. Bad movies. All the trappings of lonely people. They seem so frivilous now. Phantoms of chalk haunting the blackboard long after class is done. And teacher is gone. The smudge of lessons still under thier fingernails as the students quickly forget. Whatever it was they had almost learned.

He massaged his knee counterclockwise to my approach. A caricature both victim and hero. As is every man in the presence of a new woman. Telling stories. True fairy tales. Of wolves in the woods waiting for their picnic baskets. Of encounters with big teeth.

I take my metaphors one dose at a time. The callous antibiotics time prescribes to the fevered. The empassioned. The minor moments that oce were so grand.