I make it hard to catch myself in the little snippets between timeframes. Projector days, it used to be easier. The frames were more disjointed, more room for slip-of-a-thing-me to slip on through. But now, now we've oiled down time to a fine precision, where the smell of fresh coffee permeates the dream of stillness that lingers. It's hard to slip through, and I'm losing my youthful vim. I flow along with the tide, let myself get carried away by my world-tasks-before-dead. I love you, I whisper, but I forget to whom, before I close my eyes.
Humans I love whisper terrible things in my ear. Little girl nightmares still latch their claws into my latchkey throat. Please, but pleading dissipates. I learn early how to absorb the brunt, so the hurting comes less. I make into being the terrors of my ancestors, because how else can I survive, when my thoughts and opinions are fragile and bareboned?
Be quick. Be clever. Don't let the bastards get in your way. He taught me that, but not what to do next, so now I just float, and try, inexpert, shimmering fingers, to claw my way through. I need to get outta time, only for a moment. Only just enough to catch my breath. You'll kill me at this pace, I whisper, yet we trudge on through. Time ecstatic, and me half passed out. He thinks it's funny. I think laughing takes too much oxygen outta my lungs.
I catch myself in a passing car glare, and there's lines around my eyes. Corners o' my mouth bent outta shape from kissing things I shouldn't be. My imperfectly applied polish now chipped at the sides. Fingers digging tight. Diggin around. Looking for something. Looking for what. Black marble paperweight slam against the tip of my spine, and I can't move. I cry, and he thinks I'm crying for the pain, but there's no pain where I am. Not down here, where I've slipped and forgotten myself. I cry at standing still, and because it's the last time.
Tomorrow, I'll wake. Here, on the floor, draped in a thin layer of paper-person dust. And I will have forgotten how to cry. I won't need the release. I'm finally standing still, and time don't reach over to suffocate me.
I'm fine. I'm alive. I'm free. And if the price for that's my grace to move, then let it be.
***
...nonsense.