Tender Machines

close enough to hate. distant enough to love. the moment came and went. pausing only long enough to let me know that it had been. and was over.

rain on the sidewalk. erasing where we'd been. fingerprints on the glass. exposing who'd been looking in. pigs in tuxedos made of mud. as dirty as they want to be.

she's a soft doll. knots in her neglected hair. hating the comb come to tame her. she's a gurgling predator. throat slit. claws still out. immersed in the pursuit of death. we're always young so long as we don't need the things that want to have us. only growing old as they tire of the hunt.

delicate chambers. marked by the passage of choices. slender strings. move the scenery. as we fail to progress. little hiccups in the light. bends in the paper. as she traces. with a stout pencil. the thin outlines. that grow steadily darker. at both the edges and the center.

strangers on their velvet stages. peel away her paper flesh. crush her plastic bones. exposing the grim mechanics of a desperate woman.

and the men who require such ugly incentives.