when she smokes, the breath out of her nose smells of metal. her body expels the poison almost as quickly as she stacks it and she wakes with anxious pupils, apologizing for a limb laying over my restlessness, struggling against her own contradictory sense of fashion, of satiation and indulgence. a huff of impatience, and pronouncedly she rolls over, clinging to the wall. her body curls to keep away the cold, to see her through hungers, to clean her blood of scent of rusting. she holds onto an empty book of matches, running her thumb across the flint in nervous meditation, wishing she were flammable.
when i am her envelope, she slows to a stop and sleeps still.
i slip softly into her ear, “this, and all other things, will fade with time.”
i feel her smile wink weak into deep sleep.
