Silent Alarms

I had a label all ready. I lost it. The insidious metaphor of sex was overwhelming. Men. Penises wagging. Useless flags. Of irrelevant conquests.

I could kill the clown. Say it was the trapeze. Claim to know why things die prematurely. And maybe someone would believe me. When after all that I try to say it didn't matter that I lost.

I had the Hansel and the Gretel. The woods. The ax. The witch. I had all the grim fairy tales to choose from. Still I wanted a bigger wolf to argue with and more pigs in sketchy houses.

You don't throw the penny. It throws you. I don't swim. I float to the surface too soon after having drowned.

Skin transpires between us. It modest explosions. Touch. patents filed too late. Now I must begin again. New designs for those old lies.

The villain in the window. Bad movies on her breath. The war between her legs. Flanked in soldiers unaware of the premise. Just men wanting to kill more than to save the rest.

The ghost in her fingers explaining the math. Multiples of when subtraction still mattered. Fractions of people happening all around her. Pallid incidents of men. Like cancelled checks.

The future. In careful doses.

Clowns without their noses.

Stuffing their tiny feet into those big shoes.

Pulling those windshields from under their fingernails. Teasing the future more than trey should. The ambulance threatening to prove her wrong.

Little battles. Smaller soldiers. More evidence. Silent alarms in the creases of flattered men. I can hear the siren in his touch. Feel the ambulance in his words. Adding parts to the time Building it because the world leaves us too quickly.