Surfaces

He tells the stories in genuine chokes. Failing in his math. Excelling in everything else. Maybe it was then. Or later perhaps. Semantics to appease bickering veins. As they thunder at the thought of bleeding again.

I like dying. Isn't that a funny thing to say. But I do. Life is always there. Combusting in its sulfurous heaps. Flint striking. Gallant sparks igniting nothing. Rips in her nylons sneaking up her legs. To find mechanical doors. And an endless array of passengers. Everything about life alludes to death. Or rather the fear of dying. The monsters in fairy tales. The drugs that attempt to make it happen. Fruitless contradictions. That invariably lead to the same dismal end.

The child in the corner flaunting her tears suspects empathy will prevail. The old man in his underwear assumes the dark will descend. The logic in the drowning teaches me to breathe again. Those missing hours in the time machine expel the world in fragments.

Little cuts. That's all it asks. Patience. And a steady hand is all it needs.

Wake up. The fairy tale has been read a thousand times. The monsters are all long dead. Only the hero's intentions remain unclear.