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| PHOTO BY SI |
I don't see grass growing through those cracks. All I see is cold, fractured holes that descend into nether worlds.
I lose my child's imagination that chooses the missteps so I could fall into this abyss of wonder with rabbits, mad hatters, and bitch-face queens, enticing with tea and talk of pleasantries and backstabbing.
But no, these cracks rob me of a child's talent to make light of danger; the child who trusts and believes all the big people in this world will eternally love, care, and protect. You love me, don't you?
Looking down into that void, I sense its strong gravitational allure, a familiar sensation and a familiar place.
These fissures, abode of the Erinyes, they know me. They know me well after the child's erasure.
Blood tastes metallic sweet as another number pops up in the morning news. The sound of splitting, breaking. A screaming separation. I attempt to avert my eyes, struggle to block my mind from letting the story seep into this trembling sentience.
But I've been hit. A hard nefarious force like all the others
before, a deafening blow on the side of the head. Gravity beckons with no
safety net for the fall through the jagged tear, a knife wound meandering in
freakish zigzag carved with sadistic sensuality by that staunch killer of
functional faculty.
I retreat, cower, holding breath, a bete
noir that the imminent intrusion will take me down for good. Because they all
know me. Know I belong to them. That I'm one of them.
I'm. One. Of. Them.
