I've been sweeping metaphors into a pile at my feet - since late last night when I woke up and found Belle dead across the page - laid out like she was swimming, outlined in grey chalk script - that curled away in looping words ending with a smiley face - they read, 'Juliet was never Juliet if she fell in love with Paris - and laughed behind the curtains of the stage'
Menelaus just smirked, looked at me and mumbled something about Troy and humiliation - He said, 'I keep getting these slashes all across my dreams but for the life of me I don't know how they got there' - 'Yeah, me too', I said and lifted up my shirt to show my chest, 'but after all this blood - it was Galatea carving me instead'

Today I think I'm done with trying to guess the shape of truth by examining these exit wounds that make me feel so hollow - Something tells me I should just be glad that when it cut me down - it didn't miss anything that was vital - So give me one more swallow of this bitter conversation - and I'll wrench it down again - shake my head and hit send - Maybe this way I'll finally poison that wandering Lancelot - whose madness always keeps me looking too far back - to a girl I once saw standing with a huge fake smile, holding hands and getting married on the train tracks - But it didn't take me all sixty of her photographs this time to realize this ghost was just a shadow burned on my retinas long ago - and, uncomfortable as I've been lately with feeling this normal, it makes the walk a little easier, just to know