Words Pretend

An urgent piss languishes at the back of her throat. The riddle still a riddle. The answer still a risk she's not willing to take. The inches between villains and lovers somehow immeasurable now that I'm one or the other. Maybe both.

His eyes flutter like the wings of a starving moth. Trapped inside this world within the world. Where living is only speculation.

We'll say it's been too long. And we might be right. We'll say it's too dark out there. We'd never find each other anyway.

A rubber band becomes her throat. In scowls of skin thick that pretend they still breathe. The fuse of pantyhose duly lit. Bombs fitted to her crotch. In deliberate surrenders.

In slow stages of brittle it lets go. Rotten fingertips of touch fall apart trying to hold. Stalwart manias confuse love and circumstance.

Tell me I am alone and I will believe you, but still lie to you and say that I don't. Because there's still time. There's still sex enough. To find the woman in all this child.

Words pretend. And so do people. That we can begin again.