Tell me of the time when you,
Like eyes, darted,
around trees like sentinels
Whispering that we would never be,
and I ran after you,
the August breeze in your oil-scented hair
but you only laughed at me,
like daggers against the skin,
Tell me why you tortured me so,
Because, you only could, and
when I reached you at the river,
that lay like a grey ribbon,
Love don’t last sugar, you said.
Tell me now, of the distance,
between eyes yours and mine,
when I held your arm,
naked above the shoulder.
Tell me of the time,
the broom that swept,
only the dog that leapt,
and lights went out,
and I’ll tell you, babe,
love don’t last.

Looking forward to a birthday.

Despite all my misgivings, I walked into the open door. It was a green door, marked only with a silver number that gleamed in the pus yellow light of the hallway like a beacon: 23. The inside of the apartment smelled faintly of perfume, and as I groped for a light switch, my hand touched lace. She moved in the dark, lace rustling lightly against my outstretched palm. She made no move to turn on the lights. She was shadow in the dark, harder to see even as I squinted. She came close, the perfume intensifying as she laid a hand on my shoulder, the skin old and cracked, the varicose veins bulging. And as she came closer, I could see her face, her eyes, her mouth. Her cracked lips opened, revealing razor sharp teeth, filed down to a point. Her yellow eyes darting constantly from side to side, as if madly following a tennis game, and her tongue followed the same movement, darting to the left and then to the right, over those teeth. And when she spoke, I heard flies, a thousand of them, buzzing against my eardrums. I recoiled, stepping back hesitantly, but she pushed forward, panting, a heavy, almost sexual, panting. Spit ran from the corners of her mouth, long tendrils that made it to the floor without breaking, like vines. She stumbled again, reaching out and grabbing onto my belt buckle. The buzzing intensified, now millions of flies, angry and agitated, beat against my ears. I fell back, and instantly, she was upon me. Her hands grappling for my clothes, and her tongue searching for my face. I took a deep breath, held it in, and kissed her. She scrambled for my face, ragged nails digging into my cheeks, raking them into slivers. Her teeth bit into my lips, and her alien tongue, longer than imaginable, worked its way down my throat. As we kissed, her cracked lips began to bleed: thick, viscous fluid that entered my mouth and tasted of rank rotting meat. It filled my mouth and began to run into my throat. I struggled against her mad grip, but her strength was viselike, and the fluid started to fill my mouth, my throat and my nose. While she took long whooping breathes through her nose, twin streams of thick fluid ran down my own nostrils. And in another second, just as I started to pass out, it was over. I stood up and patted myself down. I had lost some hair, gained a little weight around the stomach and my body hurt a little. She was nowhere to be seen. I walked into the room.