First time I saw her she was wearing a mask.
One of those parties, you know?

First time I saw her - and
she was the world to me.

She wasn't just a pretty face.
She was wearing a mask.

- the whole world -

I asked her to dance..
and she did...

She unfurled.
She hung above the floor
on a wind of melody.
She hung like silence
between
beats
and soared the rhythm
like.. I don't know...
like an eagle prances
(thoughtless wings, a lazy surge)
in thermal updraft exhalations
from volcano nostrils
of the planet.

I had to take her home.

It wasn't that I wanted to get into her pants.
- of course I wanted to get into her pants
But that's not why -

I had to take her home.

I wanted to get into her face.
I wanted to get her mask off.

And when I got her home,
she took her pants off before I

could even ask.

I had to ask for the mask.

Over the years,
I begged for the mask.

And she refused.

It's been decades.
Last week..
she took the mask off.

I don't know why.
Maybe over the years,
under the mask,
the flesh...
well.. decayed.
Maybe the mask sank roots in her face,
and it tore open when...

I don't know.

But it's no clean wound.

It's a festering.

It's a party for things that crawl.

And I can't look away.

When she exhales
I plummet through sulfuric stench
into the pit of hell.

When you fall like that
from broken wings..

how do you stop from looking down?

I beg her to put the mask back.

But she refuses.