coming up

just the two of us were not enough so we made her we 

invented her out of the words we had saved like toys too 

delicate to play with and there she was and us moving around 

her carefully to avoid the eyes we had given her she didn't 

know her name until we spoke it she was lost she was in a 

parking lot looking for a car she didn't have and we told her 

we would drive her home

we asked her where she lived we knew she didn't but asked to 

let her know so she could feel it for herself where do i turn how 

much farther but no response just her eyes searching the street 

signs for anything familiar but nothing and we knew that and 

we told her it was alright that we would take her home and we 

smiled thru her at each other these thin smiles she could not see 

but they went right thru her she was that faint

 

she grew solid as the days went on she became the stories we 

filled her with about who she was about when she stood in the 

backyard for five days in the rain her skin peeling like old paint 

until we brought her back inside how we scraped the loose 

pieces off and covered her up again

 

we gave her a history like moldy books in our basement holes 

where bits of her life should have been and the holes were the 

only truth in her she was made of holes we left them by 

accident falling from our hands because we could only hold so 

much they were hers she was there just behind us picking them 

up eating them smiling feeling the weight in her gut her skin 

growing out around her bones

 

we got home at night so tired from filling her with stories we 

undressed with our eyes closed and couldn't find the bed alone 

we hadn't touched each other in weeks and didn't care we had 

her but she was wide awake stronger now opaque walking 

quietly around the house recognizing things in the dark

 

we were so tired we slept until the next night and woke up to 

nothing to what we had gone to sleep to get away from and her 

sitting at the foot of our bed saying the sun stopped coming up 

that we had been asleep for days when it happened and now it 

was always dark

 

she touched our skin wrinkled thin like paper she told us we 

had to move slowly so we wouldn't tear she looked at us sadly 

told us to lie down to sleep again she told us she would wake 

us up the next day

 

the next day came of course dark like an empty closet and us 

inside asking is there a door she told us what we said in our 

sleep how we screamed at each other how we never listened 

and only spoke when someone else was speaking and we 

believed her we held the corners of the sheets in tight sweating 

hands and we believed her

 

we waited for her stories like fish in a tank too small for us to 

move when we tried we splashed the only drop of water onto 

the floor and she cried a single tear over our dried out bodies 

we ate only what she told us we were at the top mouths wide 

open she fed us anything she wanted to and we ate it and 

smiled and opened our mouths for more

 

she ran out of tears out of food out of whatever it was we 

wanted her to want us to be and then she left gathered up her 

holes and walked away one morning just as the sun was 

coming up

 

it blinded us burned our skin thru the sheets the shades the 

windows it lit us on fire like puddles of gasoline shrinking in 

the middle of a parking lot that never ends.