Her need was a defect that she tried to hide behind a sheen of indifference. It was all she had besides the wounded look used as a weapon. Anyone that kept coming back would win her over and ruin the ferocity of both.

My defect? I knew all this instantly. I knew and kept coming, not even allowing myself the fantasy of ignorance.

I wanted to get all wrapped up in this, totally devoured, but knew I couldn’t. Maybe that’s the real reason for my repeated appearance.

Her place looked exactly the way I knew it would. The way I needed it to for this memory made into a story. I changed it to fit, truth just being a story often repeated. Gaining power and form through repetition without variation.

So now, this is your place.

Don’t give me that wounded look. Speak evil, a thousand arrows fall from my heart.

Lay down and listen to the storm move the pictures tacked to the wall. An attempt to escape on wings dried and cracked. Now move like your neighbor’s not home, add to the storm.

At least this I can get caught up in, these fleeting fits.

The hat hid beneath the door. Someone was watching.

I didn’t care.

She had been hurt before and something about her bottom lip drove me nuts.

Afterwards there would be silence, then the sound of hearing her sleep breath. And the rain, hitting the roof, a thousand notes from a saxophone clumsily played by a sad man.

Let the hat drop, let the hat watch.

Nikola was asleep and I had the rain to listen to as it washed away all tomorrows.

-finis-