Pageants in Torn Denim

It happened while I wasn't paying attention. Anyway. I needed something to do.

Skin like fabric wincing as we tugged on precarious stitches. Pieces sworn together falling undone. The gore of the needle becoming apparent as the threads slithered free of its tunnels.

We weren't doing anything except looking for something else to do.

Shoulders on the window sill. While the rain tapped out its morse code on the glass. His breath silently translating every dot. Every dash.

While we stewed in the something else we had done.

Paper fingers coaxing the flame. Until.

They were consumed.

By something else. We'd not anticipated.

The screech of the dark as it comes lumbering into an empty life. Where passengers once boarded. But now all tickets are trash. It sings sometimes. Opera. In languages I can't identify. So I listen for the sound of something else.

We both can hear.

Little words in giant pockets. Lost in the strut of copious lives. Little words. Written on cold legs. That don't remember. Maybe never knew.

Anything other than something else to do.

I had discarded my jeans and still wasn't naked.

Not yet.

But soon.

And I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do.