You don't enjoy hurting yourself. You don't mean to do it on purpose. It's just that thorns need to find refuge too. It's hard to say where their homes lie or if they even exist but perhaps the depths of flesh are their cardboard boxes in indifferent parks.

And I will devour your face. I am not a zombie, not as far as being living or dead is concerned. But it's a way to keep identities secret because these masks, disguises tend to fail at grabbing your attention.

And we will sleep. I'm sure you will be as still as the mouse during the fox's supper, calm because you know what will happen, you know that dreams are a certainty, that they are one of the few things you can count on on sugar sweet nights and rainy days. But I can't relate. Tossing and turning makes up my entire being, and it's not so much the bird beating against my rib cage. It's something behind my eyes that keeps bodies constantly moving, balls of light and dust that swirl through black spaces.

But the dark never meant there was nothing there. The light switch is off and I can't find anyone to reach the string. I'll boost you up, I'll use both hands, fingers interlaced, and I won't mind the bottoms of shoes pressed against my eyes because I hope you won't mean it.

So please sign on the solid line. The dotted line is home to the dust of erasers and lead, to grins instead of smiles, to hellos you'll never hear, and embraces that never happened.

Because I tend to dream in dotted lines.

And there's just something unfulfilling about paper cut-out clouds.