The bruise at the base of my spine is butterfly shaped, dressed and downstairs. My mother's eyes flinch away from a skinniness I'm obvlious to. Lank-haired ; skin splotched with bruises like split wine. Some few drunken srangers trying to lock their eyes into a body thats slowly disappearing, sitting-curled in on myself : at the centre of this, there must be a sort of purity if I just work myself in a little deeper. The bones that catch the cold and hold it must point somewhere. Waking, snared in the limbs of someone I never see again - an unfamiliar voice trying to pin me down with sleep-fuzzed concern. He's slack. Flesh bags round his waist and I'm repelled, I'd do anything not to have to touch. Curling tighter around a hunger that cuts to the bone, trying to find the centre that must be round here somewhere.