Aspirin and Linament

Yes, you are close to her. The ticking clock. The shedding skin. The infant in her crib. Covered in blood. Yellow ducks on white pajamas painted red.

You don't know where the entrance is. You ask once and wind up back at that same bar. To ask again. So many strangers. How to get there. You don't know why you go. Or why you should. Squeezing the tit on the gear shift for a groan of assurance. Cataloguing the miles in buckets of ink and dirty condoms.

The stars were close. The Moon even closer. As it tends to follow. Until sleep bites hard again. With foul dreams too thin to recall. Sweating sheets that scratch out the song. Until there is nothing left to hear. Other than the dying leaves. That come off the tree as I dig my way toward its top.

I sat down on a stool close to him. And waited for a notice. The fairy tale limping on three legs. A toothless wolf alone with the pigs. The rabid princess. Caressing the woodman's axe.

Struggling with the end of the story.

Bored with the moral.