Slave

Here I am, hiding in plain sight. Exposed, raw, and riddled with holes. Eyes closed. I watch you sleep a hundred miles away. I crouch here in the dark smoking bubbling puddles - metallic rain clouds - so I can breathe as my chest caves and expands and shivers like a fish surrounded by air and still suffocating.

" So why do you always wear those ridiculous glasses?" He nods and waves his hand with a flourish.

" Ridiculous, how?"

" Large, they're large. Like an insect. And you always wear that black fedora... and those eccentric clothes, so old fashioned. like you're..."

" ... a traveler from another time?"

"Yeah, like a traveler."

" If you have to know," I mutter in a tired voice, " I wear this hat because I'm trying to blot out the sun. At any moment I could burst into flame and then I wouldn't be able to get high anymore and you'd lose a customer."

" Sun? It rains every single day here."

I look at the window, not out but at, at the thin blanket of drops. I watch them trickle into each other and merge and then slide out of sight. I weakly reach out my hand and press my fingers against the glass and outline their trails. I remember how I used to outline the shadows on your body as we'd lay in bed shrouded in growing dusk. Trails that would lead into other trails. Ends becoming beginnings becoming ends.

I turn and try to focus, " We all wear masks. Sometimes we wear our pain... we exploit it. Sometimes we expose our pain, our secrets, and this serves as an incredible mask. It's a diversion. People are stunned when they see someone like me but never ask what it is I'm hiding. And I prefer things this way."

" I asked."

I look into his eyes, " No, you didn't. I volunteered."

He smirks as he tosses the baggy onto my lap. " Fair enough, are you going to shoot up here?"

" If you don't mind, I'll be quick."