Matadors

There's no power. There never is. We sit in the dark. Slow burning matches. Hungry for skin. We stifle in the silence. The whole world gone deaf. Screaming words no one hears.

Why she asks. Why do you pretend the world is flat. Long suspenders stretched taut. Assembling time machines out of old girlfriends. Where's the math in dead men? Or cowards with the clock pinned to their groin. Counting the minutes. Between kittens drowned.

There's no power. In either together or alone. I reason with darkness. In flurries of skin. That all melt upon reaching the ground. I gather my Einsteins. And manage to convince the machine it will work this time.

Why she says. Not really asking. Why spoil the deception by biting into it. When its fruit isn't ripe.

The power belongs to those who can manage in the dark. There's no power in love. Nor the want for it. The wolf she notices is out of breath. And the pigs are safe in their brick house.

She hasn't found the future. She's just proved it exists. Without power. In a darkness. That seldom subsists.

Tugging on her skin. In muted grabs. Time. A tailless scorpion. Trying to sting.

Absent demons.