¶ Oxblood is the dried blood of the dead thing dad brings back on his tires. It’s the wet blood of the living thing at her keyboard, stilled hands over keys. She stacks punishment against desire to measure. Then it’s sumptuous, pizzicato-pulse blood that turns its way through circulatory system to fingers, ventricle to artery to vein to capillary to cut. She draws back.
ASDFJKL; — I don’t curse. Won’t for years.
I retreat. Don’t get online. Search for a bandaid and watch a friend IM instead. The responses come in, line by line by line. Glee, like noise beneath skin. Nacreous static. Glitter!