it is of course, the first cliche: he lights a cigarette….
“we were in paris. it was night and we were pretty drunk.” he inhales, lets the smoke drift out of his mouth like slow serpents seducing their way to heaven. “she wasn’t much older than seventeen.” he looks at us, smiles, “but she told me she was twenty three.”
and he knows that we know that we’ve heard this all before.
“oh, if you could only have seen her!” he leans back, eyes wistful, “she loved the meringue, even danced to it when it wasn’t playing.” snaps the ash off to the side. he leans forward suddenly, “even shopping along the champs-élysées, in and out of every store, with her hips, magnifique!”
he leans back again, not breaking eye contact this time. his smile does not reach his eyes. we know what’s coming, we’ve read the reports.
“but,” he held the cigarette just before his lips, humming the tune before he actually says the words to match them. “…’she was just seventeen, if you know what i mean’…” he pulls the last drag particularly hard, as if he is remembering something vivid and even perhaps something painful. we know he had bitten off her ear and one nipple. we also know she managed to give him a good scratch down his neck that required stitches.
we don’t exactly know, yet, if he bit her before, after or during her dismemberment.
“the tragic thing is,” he says, carefully putting out the cigarette in the ashtray he had been ignoring so far, “the tragic thing is that i had to pollute the seine with her.” he points a finger as if he is imparting a lesson, “the same sacred river that our victor hugo has the ‘valiant’ inspector javert throw himself into.”
he laughs, looks at all of us in turn, “do you not love it? only in the sewers does a coward and whore meet! it is quite beautiful, no?”

there is a tear here, where things scramble out in to the world and roam. there is a tear where his mouth used to be and he cannot find enough fingers to put in it. he cuts them with his teeth and they escape him. they crawl around. there is a tear where her eye used to be and it leaks thorns down her face. break the skin where its tight along her cheek, opens her jawline before she can speak. there is a tear in the sky and it bleeds on everything.
and the little one breaks down into pieces, crumbles before me. i scoop her up and try to put her back together but i have no hands so i do it with the stumps of my wrists and my teeth fall into her face like tears and the thorns have ripped open her sides and i bleed on everything, i just can’t stop bleeding.

“did they say that it was a joy ride? a fucking joy ride?” he lit a cigarette, remembering, it was after their first fight. he pulled hard and exhaled, annoyed, “a fucking joy ride. man, that’s some fucking nerve.”

there were cracked turtles, shells shattered just a little bit, licking their wounds but completely high because of it, like they got off on the pain and he caressed one with a tendril, cooing it bird songs designed to appeal and the other tendril wrapped around her waist pulling her closer. he whispered, “the sky is purple with my desire.”

to which she responded, “the clouds have made the lake dizzy.”

and there were leopards neon green and small, like midgets on the lam that climbed around her shoulders and buried themselves in her hair. they peeked out occasionally, eyes glittering with contempt and loneliness, like severed lips without a face. she said, “come here, i have a lump in my throat”

slowly he dug deep until she choked out nothing but butterflies like tinfoil and spit. she was wretched with embarrassment. “surely” he said, looping both tendrils around her, thighs to hips to belly and breast, “you must be joking.”

and even as the leopards yawned lazily, pawing at his nose, he leaned closer and added, “all bruises heal ceaselessly, like magic, like air the lightening leaves after thunder.”