The Truth Is

I'll tell you a story. I'll make it nighttime. Because then you won't know how wrong I am. I'll hold the flame close to my mouth and tell myself it's not the same. Though I know it's alike.

The dirt in the crevices of their shoes. The holes in the ceiling like fireflies looking for the moon. In stockings slipping down. Below the knees. In boots I wore only that one day. When the couch taunted. When alone meant together.

In soft equations. In men I once called sperm. The skid of bathrobes too wiling to choke the soap from filthy skin. Arrows pointed like spoons of heroin. Slipping into collapsing veins. Not the weakness. Only the need. Of liars pulling the knots from my hair. The eruption. Almost forgotten lunge. With leather jacket creaking hard. Against the dashboard. Thinning the years between us.

Until.

I was.

As old as you are.

The truth is I don't know what I've lost. Or that I've lost anything at all.