poison darts

She came into work with a walk

she had practiced.

a walk that was meant to convey

strength and composure.

I imagined her in front of the full length mirror

rehearsing; 

getting frustrated when she couldn't convince herself;

maybe the smudges were still on the mirror

from where I had fucked her;

that can't be good for this rehearsal process.

Maybe it was strengthening,

like mortar between bricks.

She threw a handful of photos at me,

I didn't care for the gesture.

She took a deep breathe as if 

summoning some more of this inner mortar

for some epic soliloquy; a monologue of her love

and how I had crushed her soul - or something lame like that.

She looked me in the eye, hers red, moist and fibrous;

her lip quivering like a composer's wand in the rapture of a crescendo.

"fuck you."  

She stood waiting for a response,

I must have taken too long as she

turned around and stormed through the door.

Her walk meant something on the way out.

It wasn't stylized or over acted.

It wasn't a choreographed march

with a well rehearsed connotation.

No.

This was real.

I picked up the photos and 

my stomach crumbled like dissolving mortar.

I turned the 'open' sign over; 'closed'.

an early midnight - like I was some ancient god 

with control over time. 

I spent the afternoon burning those photos

It's never a good idea to leave poison darts lying around.