Serpents with Metal Tongues

Cheating the inputs. From wall to lips. The wires chasing across the floor like dead snakes. As I dig for any life that might be left in their carcasses. Chewing on my thumb. Giving up some skin seems a reasonable trade for having a bit of someone else's.

The old man peered at my chest with astonished eyes. Yes, that's what it says. Though most people don't notice at all. Another shirt draped loosely over rather unremarkable mounds of flesh.

Following the walls. The secrets they keep safe within. Little truths that would slip out from my fingers after we'd left the bed behind. It feels better now to remember than it did to live it. Not because it was bad. Just that it was difficult. Every minute together a morbid decision not to care too much. Sitting on the thinnest branch and just waiting. Always waiting for it to snap. More concerned with when it would end than what was actually happening.

You're never old enough to love someone. You're either too old or too young. If you look both ways before crossing it'll never happen.

If you don't, you may wish it never did.

I can't sing. Never could. So I listen. To their songs. The music they make as they pluck my strings.

It can't all be gone. I know it isn't. Even if there are only freckles left. When everything goes dark I see so much better how bright it was.

And it doesn't seem lost at all. Just waiting to begin again.

Serpents with metallic tongues sucking the connections from the walls. Until we can feel something new.