I drop my mind in the drum and break the washing machine as a result. I can see its pale, scrappy face, wedged like a wishbone into a crack in the bowl. I try to drag it out but it slips, laughing, from my fingers. Fine, stay there. See if I care.
Strung out, prisoner. Funny money, broken heart.
I once had wisdom. I know I did. I remember its mark on me, anvil-shaped. I wish I had known that wisdom was something you could lose, that it was not forever, once accrued. To think that it can be excised from you from one night to the next by a masked and gowned surgeon, scalpel at the ready, through the open window. New moon observing coolly at his back. Take that, tooth fairy.
Hopes, dashed out against the wall. Signs, whorls in the changing sand.
Forgive me, or don’t. See if I care. God, I do. Tech bubble, 2000s revival. My gummy, stained, red-ribboned childhood of Pax Americana, family faida. But still I cannot remember ever having been so crushed as I am at this moment. Following the perfect lines on the mats with my dagger. If I lift my gaze and find you there, who knows what my face could reveal. Never healing from the beating I took from your horseshoe.
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