SKIN BOOK #6

Are you there? The chat bar pings and I

echo

I’m here. I was there you say. I

echo

so was I. You were at the bar you say. Your black skirt scratched your thighs. The nylon made your skin hot and through your top I followed the sweat-carved valleys in the fine hair on the small of your back. I say I felt your eyes. You see but never touch. You see across the room, through clothes, I wonder if you see through skin. You

echo

yeah, I see. I see the ice withdrawn, the skin left warm, almost alive, almost breathing, bereft of the absolute zero inside. I say you can talk and you

echo

yeah, I can talk. I say have you always been like this and you say like what and I say like this semi-human tundra watching hunter and you say oh like that and I

echo

yeah, like that. The silence-shrug fucks my head and I say well have you and you say I guess, have you? And I say yeah. Always. I say I had a twin. I had a twin you

echo

 I say he died and you

echo

yeah, she died. I say I have to go and you say so do I, and the screen goes black and I open my SKIN BOOK and I write I had a twin, he died, and my fingers feel the

echo

~ by yearzerowriters on November 30, 2009.