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Jan 2012
one
It’s a curious thing what a starving man will eat. Not that you would not know what scrupulous fingers pan the earth in desperation.

You walk by near every day, methinks. Too you see him.  Blink once and that boney shell will paint the back of your eyelids. Yet, you look away and dash the eye, leave him standing dark in the corner - the shadows drawing lines across his branded face; the wrinkles of a contorted sorrow.

I don’t blame you, surely, the same way you cannot blame a dim-witted hound for cowering away from the mess it has made. But you put him there, whether you tell yourself you did or not. You did. And I do blame you for that.

I know you remember that first day, with detail I’d wager. The two of you sharing a simple meal taking time as a novelty. A nice night perhaps, but your eyes are what gave you away - what swimming cries for love hid themselves in the crystal waters there held.

Whether you tell yourself he did or not, he saw it. One look like that will spear through a man and pin him to a wall, leaving him to bleed out unless some one can fuel his heart.

He knows what happened, could see through the soft maple skin birthing locks of smooth hair, all of which traced the Evan form up to your smile. But what he did not know was that he was plying with fire. He did not know the bountiful plate in front of him would be his last meal for quite some time.

I’ll let you in on a secret, though - something you’ve been told a hundred times. He loved you because you were perfect. Most would say that, a man rapt by such a feeling will fill in the holes, smooth over the cracks, and apply a fresh coat of paint, but you were different.

You, my dear, were one of those few that embodied what started the ideal of man calls an angel. A broken one in your case; an angel none the less.

But to you it’s like rain drops on your skin - it never seems to sink in, and it’s obvious you go about it that way. You have inside you the purity to crack a man in half and bleed his corruption out. But you don’t seem to realize that, and never will - I’d bet.

To you it’s just rain. and had you looked any closer, you’d have kissed the tears of a dying poet.
Mike Finney
Written by
Mike Finney
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