BACK JUST TO STAND HERE

There are lines through the broken bricks. Fragments of your city. Cut up, cut out. In my hands are the remnants of what I own. Please don't close your blinds. Not tonight. I've travelled so far just to stand in this unfamiliar spot, with that long long line of mistakes snarling behind me. But for once, just once, everything around me is silent.

Happy, your family. They look pleased, in that way where they don't even have to look pleased. Your husband has big hands. They look like they could crush a melon. And your kids, so absorbed in what they're eating. You know, don't you, that their food will never run out.

I weigh the brick in my hand. I've chosen a nice one, with thick obtuse edges. It will break the glass, but it won't cut through skin. I'm not a complete monster. Do I want you to see me out here, haggard and lost under the streetlights? Maybe I do. Maybe I don't.