Dimming Fluorescents

The attic is no place to play he warned her as she gathered her stairs. What do men know of dolls in dark places she asked him. As she pulled the string on the naked bulb. More than I do. And so much less. She answered herself. Different shadows. Same lack. Of seeing what is there. The light too strong. For blind hands. I wish I had never turned it on.

Then I would still know nothing. And nothing would still know us.

In soft beds. Full of dolls' eyelashes. She examines. The particles that are missing from the mass. Whispers of god in the science of men. High dungeons in the execution of skin. As we try it on. Only to find. That it doesn't fit.

The years expire in fits of touch. The illusion of collision still testing my resolve. The smaller parts of the atom finding the universe still too small. The continuum collapses and I wonder how I ever crossed a bridge that small.

Inside our attics. We could look out the short windows and pretend the world was small enough to grasp.

But those men always had other plans.