Bland Magicians

Work quickly she warned as the sun slumbered deeper into the horizon. I have these words. All these words. And nothing to do with them. I have beggars in my empty glasses and liars in the full ones.

All my dreams have cataracts. I try to sleep, but it doesn't come. All my time machines take me backward. Too far into the past. Where I don't exist. And I can't touch anyone.

The future says it isn't there.

Her bladder ruptures. and we are dispersed. Dead fish bones and sand. Wheezing over the ocean. In torn dresses. And seldom friends. She tears the page from the magazine. Scribbles on the flat photograph. Curves. And convexes. Anything fluid. The black seeping through to all the other pages.

She writes in red. In bullets and bottles. She writes in black. Saving up her Cinderellas. Her dense bones make her wings useless. Against the envy gravity has. For anyone not afraid to fall.

She tries on her claws. For the second time. And finds them duller than she remembers. Numbers. Flesh. Variables. Constants. The songs she listens to as she travels. The ones she doesn't hear.

The future her explains the catastrophe with fluid fingers. The present her pounds her fists. Pretending to understand. When they met. Or if they ever have.

The physics of if bend the dial as she presses the button. To find herself. To find herself. To find herself.

To find herself. Before she forgets.