Another face, another name, another introduction that lacks the bite to grip. The fear of feeling foolish held her off before, but the reality of her foolishness serves her little better. This one hopes for children, that one merely wants fucking with more steps, over there are the misaligned kinks like cogs' teeth. Her pencil is untouched all night, the flimsy contact sheet folded thrice but never marked. Bell, ruckus, repeat once more; she's bound for home alone all the same.
A new city was to mark a new era, a new self with new manners. Elaborate social rituals contrived to put her in contact with strangers, yet trust is never rewarded by chance. If life is a painting, she is mere pigment, ripped from her context and suspended in air. How cruel, that paint must find its own painting! How much the painter demands of their medium! Yet color sans comrades is mere sensation, moments in woods holding everything and nothing. Her domino stands tall, falls alone, stands once more, and the nights repeat endlessly, uniquely identical.
The cliff edge howls at her side, yet neither wisdom nor will presses her onward. She showers, she sleeps, curled cold in her sheets.