I found today in waking that I don’t need sleep as much as I need food. Part of me is dizzy while the other is railing at my attempt at excess. I was aware to see dawn today, I was aware when I left scarlet lines down his body in complaint. Before I leave the house I’m going to take a shower and brush my teeth and wonder about stem cell research as it occurs to me for the thousandth time that I should scrub the grout from between the tiles, every black speck a new colony of something alive. It’s what I do in the morning, in spite of the fact that it’s almost noon. I’m assuming that we’re sentimental enough to be forgiving. I’m assuming a lot of things, least of all that he’s alive still, that he hasn’t bled out. I think about the marks I left with a sad dose of heavenly pragmatacism. I could draw lines on this body without any effort. It would be too easy to create scarlet spires and cities on such pale skin. I never would have guessed that alone. Disappointment is harder to carry after surprise. Think on the words let down as if one had been carried before, buoyed up above the shoulders of something strong, and had then stepped to the ground. This was voluntary, of this I’m aware. I shook off the hands and fell to the floor, landing lightly out of habit. This is a familiar nation. They’re not a spy the way I am, they didn’t automatically have a passkey. Feet up on the windowsill, I look at trees and a sliver of sky and I think again about how the lines created at my fingertips. There’s a metaphor there somewhere.
