The Formula of Close

Orange thighs. Carrots to peel. The meat. Sour choices in starvation. The knife. Dull enough. To scrape away the shadows on the walls. Paint on her lips. Turns her words into jests. Long jokes stumble over their clumsy punchlines.

We laugh.

Because it's so unamusing.

We speak because the silence is too lonely to bear.

It mattered to her. She was pressing buttons on the walls. Constructing airplanes from numbers. Dividing people into poetry. Searching for that common tear in the continuum.

Going back. Taking it with her in the forward. The key in the lock. The window in her fist. Breaking. Red blue through the glass. Gravity making art from her wounds. Locks. Tepid lips. Spilling red. Maps drawn in empty underwear. The room vomiting. Knives and fingernails. The colors of the bed.

After all the time machines have left.

Still determined to go back again.

Kill the clock.

Slip on that dirty mask. So they'll recognize me again.

Lie. Say I've always been there. Waiting for the machine to catch up to the man.