The Rush to See the End
Before the absence of pulse, we were a blush of action within a vacuum. Hands part, memories and bodies strewn like feathers lost when the heat felt right. The rush was resuscitation startled; shallowed breaths, separated by commas, became our new language. We absorbed it like our first formal dance: three beats of gasps unwinding, hand in hand.
A Short Film of Our Marriage
Lovers arrive at dusk, two Mustangs nose to nose, eyes narrow behind windshields. They meet at seven paces, each a hand hidden from sight. In his, eleven roses, red as the morning they met— a diamond ring binds the stems. In hers, eleven ounces of steel cold as the morning they met— a heavy pulse along the crescent, ready to release hell without breath.
Uncomfortable Silence
I witness you deep in your study of me; watch as my hands input the jargon, random numbers to those without the fifteen minutes of structure, that say you are going blind. You watch as I struggle, hands too fat for medium gloves-- we smile as the vinyl tears. I prepare you for the pinprick, gently taking the tip of your finger into mine, coercing the strobe of your pulse to follow my teases of pressure. I promise the bleeding will be short, painless, knowing the bruising will last for days. The blood sugar reading is normal, but the law states I can't state what's really normal. I lie and tell you I'm ignorant to your health. You examine the careful movements as I clean up the mess afterward. You ask me about my job-- how long? do I like it? where I'm from? My boss prefers that I am inhuman, so I stage every answer from stock dialogues I recite every morning before work. Uncomfortable in close quarters, I practice what public speakers preach, imagining you cleanse the wound in negligee, and deliver what I want you to hear. I toss your blood and the sweat of my palms into the trash as you ask me what I want out of life. I find myself needing to watch as you let your hair down after a long miserable day at work; but I tell you another patient's waiting for me in this long wait in hell.