Black Lipstick

Skin turns to parchment in the heat. Curling up in papery layers, pulling back from the flesh, and exposing it in warm pink stripes.



A friend, to explain a complaint, told me that poverty is not typified so much by a lack of money but by the attitude that everything is irreplaceable, and so the poor amass yogurt containers, mop handles with decaying sponge heads, dishes in boxes unused and ugly. His complaint was towards my own habit of hoarding, assigning more importance to the funds which might be spent replacing the ephemera in the future should I find a use for it once its gone than to the money spent on storing the ephemera in waiting for this phantom purpose. Still I can't shake the desire to hold onto anything which passes through my possession, and go out of my way to amass the detritus of other people as well. Yet I get a luxurious pleasure when I assign the shoe rack, which I know I could make into something else, to the Goodwill pile. It feels rich to value space.