appearances

That will be some other tribe, some other me. You'll hold it like it should be held. A glowing flask, an odalisque, a cherry red-ripe flame, with its selling points filled with the narcissism of a serpentine alma mater. Rip it off, tongue it up and chew it with your teeth. Your finger will trace the cracked glass, in its beauty and in its metaphor that you'll pretend you do not see. But you cannot run from something that has already caught you, already nailed its sweetness to your lips and sewn your eyelids with lace. Yes, I see you tracing the glass, but all that's there is a silhouette, a chalk outline of a soul-less you that shed its pristine aura forever ago. And right now I know what is happening. I know that this isn't all you, Isabel. After all, these are my eyes that see and not your emotions I feel. Maybe you need to be there. Maybe I do, too. It could be like old times, when you'd wet your lips and bite my cuff. When your teeth would clench and those lacey eyes would look up and puncture me.