sipping little fibs with a flesh wound

There was shrapnel in his goatee and the way the sticky substances, remnants of duct tape, clung onto ashen skin as if there was going to be an armageddon tonight made me smile in the most peculiar of ways. I was a demon, lashing out from the inside with telekinetic hands, searching for a cool surface to caress in infinite ways. I wanted the embrace of a placid mirror.

And in the evening, when birdsong died down with the restless sun, I found myself perplexed by the way the breezes decided to flow over us. I held him there, underneath a massive willow, picking out the shiny silver bits from when he was silenced. His lies were a toxin, something even more deadlier than the taste of forbidden blowfish sushi.


His name was a reminder of the past and it made me reminisce of what it would be like to sit in a jazz club in 1920's Harlem. He was called Carlos, smutty and simple. And his smile, though mythic and rarely seen, was that of angelic fable. His eyes drizzled honey liquor onto caramel drops, creating a pool of golden shades that would make even the most avarice-filled prospectors cry out in stoic bliss.

Carlos' tongue was cut from diamonds upon his conception and those diamonds were of the blackest variety; covered in coal and carcinogens. And when he'd speak, though it was suave conversation, it was a package of filth tied with a pretty bow of deception. He'd claim that his mother was Queen of the Spaniards and that his father was a rich tool salesman who liked to bury the hatchet in unsuspecting prostitutes. I wanted, craved and dreamt about ripping that tongue from his mouth and watching it writhe as I stepped on it.


And in the warm summer air of late July, as we laid there underneath the willow tree, I asked him how he could speak such fabricated things. His response was a simple one, a murmur and an inhale. His eyes, once so golden and lively were now gray and dull, as if they were trying to bring the rain and I was one hundred percent sure that he wanted to feel the sting of a summer drench on his skin, rather than the sting of the freshly cut nub inside of his mouth. Needless to say, Carlos never fabricated a story again.