One strong kick to the side, a sharp upturn of the wrist turning nose into splinters that pierce the brain.
Or that well-turned insult, that polished professionally prose that leaves no breath with which to rebuke.
It is these rare violent outburts that collect the attention, that paint our world violet and orange. Beware, we think eyes slipping side to side, watching in the turning shadows for that strange, cruel other, that rare maniac ready to do us in. Yet this I tell you, brushing away the webs of paranoia, is not how we die.
Not mostly.
It is the arsenic in my coffee, the better to clean my dreams with. Through a thousand paper cuts my soul floats away, leaving my hand trailing the page.
Standing outside, just when the rain starts. Whoever used the words 'pitter-patter' never listened. Rain speaks no small talk, no chit-chat; it licks and slides, hides and discovers. Stand in a field on a mountaintop with sight lost and the rain will see it for you. Amen. Green and dark. A million things hidden in these words. Know this and you will remember how to pray and how to taste the future and all that has fed it in a breeze.
Chipped nails and broken smiles. Silence. The taste of nails clenched in teeth, teeth knocking enough to disoriente sight. Blood rising, love finding, hope sinking. A million rosaries each so rare, we count, rubbing them into dust in hopes of rest.
see-saw. she saw, and we wonder why the confusion.
