Faded Houses Green

Deprived of the vagaries of innocence, the skin tightened around the empty bottle of nothing–too nothing for too long.

Darlene wouldn’t hear of it, but that was on her day off when she could hop on a table and flip off the diving board–even though the diving board had meant no offence. Conjugations aside, the verbs filled the void with nutcrackers and silence, but Darlene insisted they do it again right this time–once more with feeling as they say. They say they wouldn’t have much to say if they said it all at once, so they said Darlene should excuse their poor behavior, but Darleen was too busy with the verbs to pay attention to anything they said or felt. Felt-lined poker tables haunted Darlene’s dreams, and she could heave a sigh as piteous as a century of Ophelias; although, she got over it quickly–being neither Danish nor the daughter of a fool.

Darlene slipped on her slippers, and the pain in her tail bone lingers to this day. And to the next.