Garden of Pretend

He pretends to light a cigarette. His words the only thing between his lips. He mimics being addicted. His life the only thing he can't control. He has pawns. He has bishops and rooks. He has everything he needs except a reason to win.

We wait. Quietly drawing on the side of the mountain. Little dolls with tiny feet walk out loud. Stepping in all the footprints of those come before them. Eyes like carbon. Bleed the ink through to the rest of our organs.

We laugh. In discordant gasps. Splitting atoms. Travelling time bed by bed. Until we are sure there is nothing left for us become. Flowers picked clean of every petal in a bulimia of questions.

He pretends we knew each other. Intimated with the various yawns of our looser skins. His loneliness my only betrayal. As darkness considers what's left. Of the pale orphans life has culled from our weaknesses.

He pretends he knows what I look like sober. A disfigured, despotic euphoria of a woman. He pretends. That when the lights are out. She's the one who makes love to him.