ALL THAT'S LEFT

All that's left are the sudden thuds of my fists into the cold memory foam. They sink if I push them a moment longer.

Careless

I have ripped open the bottom of my top lip. The weather is strange and I have been careless. Perhaps it was too dry when it wrapped around the cigarette—the lip, I mean—or was it not dry enough? Anyway, the lip is compromised. Its underbelly has come open like the hold of a plane in a hostage movie spilling escapees in parachutes. My blood is fleeing. And my face, alright just a minute ago, now feels like an overfull balloon with a pinprick in its side. The leak is not self-clotting, nor responding to blotting, so now I'm rooting around in a little drawer in this unfamiliar bathroom searching for a resolution, thinking Could I be poisoned by ointment? Should I sleep in a strange bed with a bandaid emerging from my mouth? Would I stain the sheets? Would I drain silently like an airmattress in the night?

The last time this happened, I was clambering out of an auto and gave away some DNA with a fifty rupee note. Fragments of my body may be all over the city—in wallet creases and pocket lint, perhaps in cash registers and banks, perhaps absorbed by other bodies through finger pads. Of course, I am already all over pipes and drains and garbage dumps, metro railings and poorly washed coffee cups. And now I will be a mysterious discoloration on this delicate little washcloth, and somebody's mother or washerwoman or guest will wonder, vexed, what I am before they elect, wisely, not to smear my blood all over their bodies along with soap. Perhaps there will be more of me in the dump soon, or perhaps I will become a rag and disperse myself over every surface in this house, mingled quietly with phenoyl or Lysol or window cleaner.

I didn't bargain for permanent residence when I entered a few hours ago. To contain the damage, I will slip out early in the morning, stained washcloth in tow, before anybody has the chance to offer me a cup of tea or a kiss or a knowing look and I am compelled to stutter, 'It's silly. I was careless. It's the weather, you know?'

THE EYE AND THE BEHOLDER

I remember lying in a queen bed and staring into the double-mirrors on the opposite wall. No matter where I looked, I was in my frame of vision: the me in the mirror was already looking there. Endless repetitions replaced true sight and before I knew it I was watching myself watch myself. I wasn't even looking into the mirror, anymore; I was thinking of myself looking at myself. Somewhere around 3:00, I turned out the light. Somewhere around 5:00, I lost consciousness. Somewhere around 7:00, she woke up and left for work without saying goodbye.

Let's try a metaphor

Let's try a metaphor. I wanted to drink some coffee, and you showed me a beautiful cup, so I began to brew some. Now I find your cup is as yet unbaked; the coffee will melt it and absorb its clay. You didn't trick me; I just assumed it was ready. The kiln is heating slowly, the coffee is cooling rapidly, I don't know what to do.

I PRAYED FOR FIRE

You told me that you love me but that you're afraid you're not ready to let someone love you and that, though the future may hold a place for us, the present is going to be static electricity and we'll have to go slow to see if it can be conducted without lightning striking. But you told me all this in Russian and I don't speak Russian, so that when we pressed ourselves into one another, you prayed for warmth while I prayed for fire.

Caught

We are sitting outside a park under a blue tarp eating potatoes and paranthas and discussing digital news functionalities. Across the smooth wide street is the multi-storey urban approximation of a Buddhist Monastery; delicate white travellers go in and come out. A gently dog slinks about around the food smells, routing through trash; he is startled by the plastic bottle flung at him by a young waiter. A portly man leans against a motorcycle (or vice versa) and pulls dramatically from a little cigarette, striking an irresistible pose; I whip out my little black box and catch him in it. We drink tea and talk about catching and getting caught, and with one eye I am looking at the branches above as they catch the light. A pair of improbably white loafers catch my eye and I guffaw. It doesn't seem like we are in the most polluted city on the planet somehow. And as we are paying the bill, a young man with two friends and a perfectly heart-shaped birthmark on his neck walks to a table and sits down.

TENSION

It seemed simple: from one end she pulls and from the other I pull until the line is taut enough for one of us to walk across. But the flaw was even simpler: the line goes slack when one of us lets go.