picking locks
© 1999 Devon Koren

"what's the name of the game?"
"love."
"the setting?"
"the man i loved never existed."

she stood there in her purple stockings and little else draped in moonlight and ass; her eyes flickered like traffic lights and it was caution, caution, looking never so much like a whore than she did that evening, the lipstick being a self-fulfilling prophecy. the lipstick the lipstick and the dream. right and right all along - her soiled underwear (she shouldn't be bleeding now / she shouldn't be bleeding) a fallen reprise at the foot of the bed with a million other songs...

"that song for me?"
"nah, lass, the words are the same - he just changes the name, is all."

how funny. in her purple purple stockings and the bruise on her thigh flickering like caution lights, and it was traffic, traffic, the impact of a comet and the thrust that left her bleeding (is she bleeding anymore?) she was right. a lock of hair in the trojan river - a horse contained and in disguise - every kiss a serpent live a snake with teeth to nibble the edges off. her underwear, scattered to the four corners of the earth; he gets away with murder, he gets away with... her throat flashes white, it is a deer-in-headlights, a hit-and-run. he has her again, fishnet, fishnet, the purple stockings - he has her again. the lipstick was right.

"this can't be death. it's much too slow."

there's a broken soul on the other end of this line - we both have fingers, but we were never experts in lockpicking.

"this can't be pain. there's no escaping it."

once there was marrow, but now nothing but the bone is left behind - hollow, and soft, with teethmarks like a childhood toy - the body is fucked in a mechanical fashion. a piston motion, a short explosion, a deed is done. faces are plastered over the innocent. sometimes he gets their names confused. collection. she's the purple one. with the lipstick. she was right.

she's a very own unique brand manufactured in 1979 / no sir they don't make 'em like they used to no sir indeed / this one, she's a pretty one to paste anyway, on the cover, in the sidebar, between the margins - just lick her and she's yours - she'll stay - guaranteed or your money back (in fine print: warning - easily knocked up) using your toothbrush again, so i ask [do i dare?] so i ask -

"can i have my underwear back?"

the rage subsides, there are bits of a ribcage flickering here and there (like caution lights) which must have once housed a heart -

"there is no soul but your shoe," he said. "may i have another bite?"

chew-fuck-toy. when the fucking is over, i get to be nobody important, again, i get to be nobody special, that's me, the seventeenth notch on the bedpost that doesn't know any better than to stop coming back for more. dare we escape? it is night, i've let the tresses down, i've called the corners, i've rounded up the girls. it's a birdcage. are you coming? he left the door open. caution, caution...

the morning papers. "rapunzel's prince turns out to be frog - snow white with the warts to prove it." section A8, something they call lifestyles. i hear the two got together with sleeping beauty and cinderella and opened a lesbian club. wham, bam, thank you mam, and it's back to the old pond scum - at least he is consistently inconsistent.

the blood (i shouldn't be bleeding now) flickers on and off like a traffic light, and i stop, stop. the game is over.