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    It was one of those mornings. Stiffness in bed, hindering a small woman’s motivation to leave that warm cocoon. Wrapping herself in her work, she numbly dresses, applies makeup, gathers her things, sits in class. Flashes of another day in her mind more often than not, she remembers too many past lovers.

    Don’t touch
    Too numb to bother with those fingers.
    Too cold.
    Too much drug.
    She packs up her notes and moves on, class to class, room to room, lover to lover.

    1.
    Once upon a time….no, that’s not right. Too soft a beginning for so harsh a tale, so rugged a fantasy. And yet there she is, in a soft bed with soft arms wrapped around her small frame. Light breaths across the back of her neck, fluttering touches on her stomach. Her sick stomach, churning at the thought of another night asleep here, in this foreign place. Testing those arms, a prisoner testing her bonds, she slides free to the bathroom, locking herself in. Hair falling in her eyes, lipstick smeared across her cheek, ragged shirt draped across her shoulders, eyes bloodshot and teary she wants to wash her face. She turns the light off and stands in the darkness instead.

    2.
    Dragged into the shower, the unenthused lover bathes, pulling her tangled hair back, exposing the sad brown eyes. Quick good morning kisses followed by quicker cups of coffee poured into travel mugs as the parties to the treaty go their separate ways. She putters between classes once more, tired, so tired, though it’s only Tuesday. She wonders who sees the fresh cut ring on her finger.

    Stepping in time to the rest of the herd, she leaves class again, slipping out the back door, reaching for that infamous flip-top box. She takes her vice to that tree, that secluded area, the perfect place to start a fire.

    Shadows flit behind her eyes as she flips her keys in her hand, headed back to prison. Black cat? White cat? Three legged tabby? Fiddling with her rings, biting her lip, all the signs of an addict; she makes her way across the concrete to the car, sanctuary, freedom. It takes her back to his arms, her chains.

    Cracking open the books, caressing their spines, tickling with lead, she leans down to work, perform surgery on the pages. Small 12pts Times New Roman joys caress her mind, at least for now. Curved ‘b’ and sensual ‘s,’ fingered ‘p’s and ‘q’s kiss her lips. Her love affair ends when the door squeaks open. The words fade back into their pages.

    Wearing the smile that her mother gave to her, she greets her loving jailor with warm lips, warmed by the papery kisses of flame and letter. He loves that smell on her, that smell of rolled white pipes and burning leaves. Brings him to bring her to her knees.

    Another dinner of milk and honey, she greets that bar of soap with joy as she cleans the signs of the day off her face: the milk, the honey, the smoke and the smudge of makeup applied too thick, but maybe not quite thick enough. Cleaning up to get dirty again.

    3.
    Another morning, another day just beyond the curtain of consciousness. Today, she looks forward to the words, the work, the wandering. To learning to love again, feel again, warm again. Sliding into the front seat of her freedom, she lights another small fire at the tip of her fingers and lips, feeling the dirty, uncouth warmth in her mouth, dancing across her tongue, burning her throat. Her throat feels.

    Though her throat feels, her mind’s eye is still out of focus, pen scribbling meaninglessly on the paper as someone behind her speaks. Words, merely spoken breath barely touching her ear, passing past her mind. But there. Still there. The drug is still too thick in her mind, thick in her stomach, thick in her mouth.

    Again she leaves, mainstream with the herd, birthed out the door, floodgate, pressing down the hall. Dashing behind her tree, she pulls another cigarette out of that expensive red box. And another, two more, and her throat feels more. Her lips feel more. Her eye sees more.
    Back to the Freedom, glancing at the lover in the passenger seat, concealed in the briefcase, hidden in folders and files, notepads and pages. Back to the office, back to the seat and desk, back to the kisses. Back to the caresses.

    Back in the prison, the home, the bed, the jailor is there. The arms. A kiss on the cheek, a shuffling of plane tickets and she is alone. Alone with her secret lover, her adulterers. The drug begins to seep out as she lights fire after fire, caressing the page with her pens and pencils. Rolling words off her burning tongue, the drug begins to seep out.

    4.
    Her mask is thinner today. Still thick, not thin, by no means thin, but her eyes can see now. Her lips can move now. Her burning lips can move now, her flaming fingertips are in control now. Breaking one habit by forming another, she keeps the fires going minute after speeding minute. Her lovers are gently tucked into her briefcase.

    Her eye is still blurred, still muddled in the drug, but the breath behind her is sharper, clearer, hotter. The curtain her ears hide behind part but a pin’s width. She scurries out of class, back to her hole, under the open canopy, and lights another fire. Shadows flicker beyond the curtain of smoke, fleeting images. The breath on her neck has a face, a fair face, a soft face, a woman’s face. A face made of “p”s and “q”s.

    Back, back to the foreign home, familiar office with familiar lovers. In the position that never grows old. No excuses have to be made when she’s discovered; she’s alone again alone. Guilt free, remorse free passion.

    Sleeping alone (for paper tears, crumples, rumples) she remembers her letters, no, faces. A face. The face of that breath that, for months, has sat on her neck. On her neck, behind her ears. The face of “p”s and “q”s. Caressing “p”s and “q”s.

    5.
    Wincing, rolling out of bed, alive and battered by perpetual nightmares. Wet and enclosed, she bathes in warm water, rinsing away the past night’s dreams of tender letters spoken from behind. Last night’s lovers discarded on the desk, scattered in their folders, hastily thrown back in that briefcase, tossed in the backseat of that car.
    Slowly, waking as she drives, she reaches for her cigarettes, lighting up, feeling the smoke burn the back of her throat. It takes more and more every day, but at least she feels. Hair falls in her eyes, hastily pulled back this morning, falling over thin makeup. Eyes are clearer today; no need for makeup.

    The classroom is muggy, musty, old-hat. Creaks and groans, new sounds of old rooms. Her virgin ears long to hear new sounds, closed for so long to the world, turned inward. Breath on the back of her neck tunes her ears, and she hears her first sweet words, rolling off that tongue like drops of rain on a tin roof. Sharp and soft, pounding and caressing, sounds of a lover sneaking in at night.

    This time she waits before lighting up, waiting for the face of “p”s and “q”s. Pressed against that tree, fiddling with her ring, fingering the lighter, she spies on the face. Half crouched, mostly hidden, she waits for the face to depart before indulging in her vice. Each breath cements another memory of that face, that nameless face of moving squirming letters.
    Her paper lovers ignored, she sleeps soundly that night, with no interruption from her jailor’s calls or the sweet whisperings of her papers. Just the moving letters of the breath’s face.

    6.
    She wakes in a haze, half in the dream, half in yesterday. She scrubs hastily, dousing herself, lighting her fire, too eager to feel again, too impatient to wait for the car ride. The makeup is careful, precise, metered out perfectly, from the rosy cheeks to the smoky eyes. Sighing at the mirror, she walks away, grabbing her briefcase. Today, the lovers are left on the table, dangling dangerously close to the waste paper basket.