sleep

I have watched him in his sleep; where he was providing a brief antidote to his past actions and his face was perfect, and clean and flawless, as we all are: groomed to a degree that borders obsessive-compulsive disorder. Laughing at/mocking/fighting dirt and death and decay from the day we were born as our ancestors taught us.  He was more of an American beauty, medium blond with a face carved out of plastic. Just his lips were not full enough by those standards, but this only completed the image, the flaw that was needed to make him as imperfect as male perfection demands. With a razor blade straight from the wrapping, crisp as morning air as another boring novelist might have called it, I begun to adorn his face with a loose web of clean straight cuts, which made sense at first but soon started to fill themselves all pointlessly with blood, gushing and then streaming slowly, forming ridiculous patterns, destroying everything I had ever wanted to create.

Now I stroke the dried out lesions like the back of an old cat and fall in love with the light rain again. My white steps on the staircase sound just right as I follow the interior designer to discuss the final touches, I practise my “v” sounds while instructing her with what I think one must believe that needs to be corrected completely blind to what really needs to be done. In the drawing-room the gleaming hummingbirds depart the wallpaper surface and fly out, crossing the mantelpiece like black butterflies - as if they were Roman Polanski's analogy of repulsion.

(pic by me- obviously!)