28?
28. something about [them]
At age twenty-one, I did not know what love felt like. A friend twenty years older than I stared in shock when I told him. “Never?” He asked it like he was asking ‘so, you’ve never breathed? Never lived? Never felt anything?’ I could only shrug and reply, “I always figured I wouldn’t have to guess.”
I do not know what I am feeling now, but I cannot move my eyes from their mouth. Their plum lips are moving slowly but with precision, and they smell of iron. The smell rolls off of them in waves that break along with their heart beat. The puncture of each syllable they speak is sharped with the gleam of their teeth. If you can call them that - teeth, that is. These are fangs: too long and too sharp, dazzling white. Everything else about them is washed in pale grays and purples. They are a walking bad bruise, and their hands are clenched down on my thighs, squeezing harder every so often. They’re daring me to move, they want me to test my freedom, but I do not have the will to do anything but stare up into their mouth.
