The schematics of clowns

The fruit on her pillow ripening. With all the obvious charms of rotting meat. Wait. She warns me. The sun will catch up to us eventually. This darkness. It pretends to know.

The demons on her desk. Arranging the letters. In a studious alphabet. Of torn envelopes and empty pens. They are right. In that there's nothing left to say.

Just trembling girls shivering in their missing underpants. And the shadows they leave at their feet. As they crawl into their soiled beds.

She draws her maps on patches of empty skin. Each color stolen from a child not ready to give it away. And we navigate together. The lies that make love possible. In a world where it surely isn't.

She writes her stories. In obvious metaphors. As the tortoise ambles forth. She chases the hare. Thinking she can catch him. To explain. How valuable losing is.

The ladder waits at her window. The fire rages in her bed. Escape comes in punches. That knock out her wind. But she always recovers. Quick enough to laugh about. What she has lost.