No Fingertips

Spiders talked in the corners of her sobriety. Stitching together stockings. Naming the gowns after geometrics. Crickets chirped in the foreground of her eyes. Stories she was writing for selfish saturdays. Toadstools tall enough to see everything. The cure for everything she thought, too obvious. Just learn. Or pretend to have learned that it isn't over.

Earnest ghosts. In their cardboard chains. Quiz the attic on what it still holds. She fold the clothes. Assuming her underwear is willing to move. As every teddy bear will admit. If you ask it when it's drunk. That children are not to be trusted. And adults even less so.

Repairing the blanket as the pillow floods her ears. She assumes sleep is losing consciousness. She's not wrong, just misled.

Gathering the buttons from his vest. The needle short. He remembers the child who taught him how to sew himself back together. He remembers how she lied. Said she still knew his name.

The beauty of lies is that they want to save what's lost.

Like we all want to do. Given the chance.