i like to scribble unknown faces on my leg with pen and regret them as they're drying. they'll fade, i know, leaving blots of black ink in the tiny crevices of my skin, but the immediate wave of embarrassment in the possibility of showing such a human action to another makes my face tingle.

i wonder sometimes where the ink goes, the eyes, the lips, the cheeks. i'm sure it goes down with the water into the pipes and then into pools of murky water, the kind i imagine swallowing me whole, though i like to imagine it all floats up and becomes shards of the sky, watching over me. i hope the pen doodles, the unknown faces that i now know so well would wish good things for me.