eraser

it's a long way down from here, he says. 

we are in love. he is sketching me with a 6B pencil from the outside in during the wee hours of dawn, as if i wouldn't notice. right. it hurts.

i am breaking along the inside where it's supposed to matter. no one is noticing. we are sitting at the edge of the pier. the ocean is black beneath our toes and it is as deep and far away as darkness gets. it breaks against the world. uncompromising. unforgiving. 

he is holding my hand. i am closing my eyes. in my mind i pick the eraser up again and slowly get back to task. stroke, by stroke, by stroke, erasing the outlines of my limbs, until i too am nothing, nothing but something deep and far away. breaking against the world. the wind is upon the rubber shavings, a ravenous hunger.

he thinks he is kissing me but ha, jokes, it's all been erased, i do not have lips. i do not cry. i do not speak. i do not think. there is nothing but the utter silence of a single heart shattering.