Hopscotch without Stones

Prom queens in borrowed dresses dancing in shoes that don't fit. To power ballads sickening the room with the romantic vomit of so many drunken optimists. No underwear. Just genitals with bigger mouths than contingency plans.

The deer on the windshield. The antlers in her throat. As she bent down to pick up the remnants of its hoof. Hunters see a meal. Vegetarians a murder. I see efforts better spent killing something else.

She turned to the ostrich and asked if the sand was a comfortable denial. It couldn't hear her, of course, but she gleaned her answer from its lack of response.

She laughed and told herself TVs were false messiahs. The bigger the screen the sadder the man. She watched her movies in high definition trying to imagine how they'd look otherwise. She fucked her men in slow motion. Always anticipating a defect.

Time she was sure would listen to her if only she could learn its language.