Kerosene in my hands
You make me mad, on fire again
All the pills that you take
Violet, blue, green, red to keep me at arm's length don't work
There's things I wanna say to you, but I'll just let you live
Like if you hold me without hurting me
You'll be the first who ever did
There's things I wanna talk about, but better not to give
But if you hold me without hurting me
You'll be the first who ever did
He pulled the law of surprise and requested just the evening for a little self-care, a tiny-mini spa night which mostly involves checking my ear-healing progress, drawing a warm bubblebath, drinking a lot of champagne and deep-conditioning my hair. We get through all that, including at least three glasses of champagne each and I climb up into Caleb's lap, using my fingers to trace a Himalayan charcoal mask onto his face, avoiding his eyes and mouth, scraping my skin against his five o-clock shadow.
You leave it on for five minutes and then use a super-hot facecloth to soak it off and wipe it away, okay?
I'll put yours on. Come back here.
I can't do another one this week. My skin is too sensitive. It burns.
If you do it more your skin will get used to it.
I'm sure Caleb is just trying to toughen me up, to help me navigate through life without so many bruises, knocks and a bleeding heart that floods every room it enters. Scar tissue is a great stand-in for fierce confidence, something I can't buy so I'll never possess it. My heart floods blood into my sleeve, dripping down off the edge of my hand. I'll forever be almost, kind-of, not quite all the way there.
Like Pluto.
Hmmm? Caleb is sleepy-relaxed and leans back against his end of the tub.
Pluto's nitrogen lake is not only shaped like a heart, but when it's day there it thaws and wraps the planet in a vapour, and then at night it freezes again and contracts, so it looks like a pulse. It also, I pause for dramatic effect here, is the only planet in our solar system that has an atmosphere that runs in retrograde. The winds flow to the west while the planet turns east.
You run in retrograde.
I told you years ago I was Pluto.
That makes sense. Who am I, Bridge?
You're....The Narada.
Narada. The messenger to Vishnu?
No, the Romulan mining ship that comes whipping onto the screen in warp speed with all the pointy bits in Star Trek.
What happens to the ship?
It disappears into a black hole that Spock makes. I think it does, anyway.
Funny how you know everything about Star Trek but nothing about Star Wars.
I don't, I just really liked that ship.
I'll take it personally after all, then.
You leave it on for five minutes and then use a super-hot facecloth to soak it off and wipe it away, okay?
I'll put yours on. Come back here.
I can't do another one this week. My skin is too sensitive. It burns.
If you do it more your skin will get used to it.
I'm sure Caleb is just trying to toughen me up, to help me navigate through life without so many bruises, knocks and a bleeding heart that floods every room it enters. Scar tissue is a great stand-in for fierce confidence, something I can't buy so I'll never possess it. My heart floods blood into my sleeve, dripping down off the edge of my hand. I'll forever be almost, kind-of, not quite all the way there.
Like Pluto.
Hmmm? Caleb is sleepy-relaxed and leans back against his end of the tub.
Pluto's nitrogen lake is not only shaped like a heart, but when it's day there it thaws and wraps the planet in a vapour, and then at night it freezes again and contracts, so it looks like a pulse. It also, I pause for dramatic effect here, is the only planet in our solar system that has an atmosphere that runs in retrograde. The winds flow to the west while the planet turns east.
You run in retrograde.
I told you years ago I was Pluto.
That makes sense. Who am I, Bridge?
You're....The Narada.
Narada. The messenger to Vishnu?
No, the Romulan mining ship that comes whipping onto the screen in warp speed with all the pointy bits in Star Trek.
What happens to the ship?
It disappears into a black hole that Spock makes. I think it does, anyway.
Funny how you know everything about Star Trek but nothing about Star Wars.
I don't, I just really liked that ship.
I'll take it personally after all, then.