Snow White Red

So dense with falling clumps of truth you can hardly taste a foot in front of you. Dense, blinding, and clear. Creeps up on the conversation you've been planning for, and then there it is and, of course, is different from what you were expecting. Announces itself as just what you were hoping for, a dark plummy syrup smeared out across the lens of that night and made translucent, still runny, still opaque, but thin now, and everywhere.

Sweet. Torrential. Release.

Dark sweeps of disorientation, sunshine, and a land so buried in its own positive outlook it names its public restrooms after different forms of kindness. The password is happy and so is everything else.

Announces itself with so much brass and glory, such pulsing speed, such god damned presence, it can be no more ignored than a heart beat, no more controlled than one, no more predicted than one. There's one chance to catch your breath and one chance only: Take it or not, you will be seized by the moment.

A false finish of satisfaction, though incomplete, then hits you hard hours later at 40,000 feet and 8 hours from anywhere with stroke after stroke of how much more there could have been to it, and that's just the first sip. Unusual in that it gets stronger as it evaporates. When the bottle's gone empty and dusty, still something bangs around the deep of the heart, demanding attention, asking for care, seeking tender understanding, and wanting, and wanting, and wanting.