We sit stone-still, looking straight at each other.

The nightshade glows against her glasses
and I cannot read her eyes –
all I see is myself.

My stiff, cold toes curl,
trying to root into the carpet
but they can’t hide.

The dim walls in the outer fields of my vision
seem to throb as my head spins –
we were like two cats circling each other.

Even as I avoid looking at her, her flaws
were like blinding, breathing traffic lights
on an empty road.

The silence suddenly becomes deafening
but the door’s locked (there’s no need to try)
and as the rain slips over the earth
it feels like we’re inside the stomach of a
fish with hideous mutations,
swimming in the deep dead.