Apple Juice and Menstruation

In the cold dreams of morning. Sour stockings over her head. Tepid bras clenching her breasts. She ticks. A bony stopwatch flirting with the speed of decision. I am here. And there. And every place I've ever been. In suspenders of skin stretched taut to elevate sagging hearts.

It's not like I wake up thinking this is day [insert number here] of my life. Multiply. Carry the one. X over N. I'm in my Z percent. It's not as though I fall asleep wondering when [insert wish here] will happen. I don't wish. I don't wonder. I just am. As alive as anyone can claim. The proof in their laugh. You don't have to be happy to find something funny, but you do have to have lived enough to know when something is.

I'll wake up early now and then. My thoughts bleeding calendars. Dates I can't picture in any way except faces. The chloroform smell of seldom of lovers. That make the darkness worth exploring.

Even when waking up means loosing them.

Even when I have to assume there is a god and he's amusing himself at my expense. It helps to be an atheist then. It helps to imagine all those gods in their underwear. that is. If that sight isn't too grotesque.

It helps to remember Eve when you want to taste the apple. God's hasty bi-product of first man. Original solicitor of temptation.

Woman.

Only reason there is heaven.

Only reason there is hell.

Woman.

Only reason Adam didn't hang himself.

I know you're listening god(s), because I can hear you breathing. I just don't know who you are.