and then and then and then

my face leaks like the water pipes in the basement of a brick apartment building:

abandoned by the old house keepers with skin made of canvas and eyes sculpted from glass.

Plants cling desperately onto the shattered window sill, crumpled blue flowers turned to brown.

The noise of the salt water pouring from the tinted steel and black plastic sings a new melody - one that the cat who slinks around from rusty staircase to spoiled wall sings while entrapping his rodent prey.

Dripping down my eyes as the pressure behind them boils, I leak like a broken water balloon,

I have no expression to pull apart with puppeteer strings.

and then -

I sink into my own skin, my own undulating organs that turn rank at the sight and thought of anything beyond the first layer of tissue.

I must make a decision - one that cannot exist.

-f