save the ache

A tongue slip perhaps, a stutter over syllables not ready for release, everything lost save the ache. Everyone having misspoken at once. The burn after turn down service still in the works, the stories are repurposed and misfiled. Only the occasional intelligence intercepted by some useless plug. Only the seesaw of sentience loosed upon the path to the playground. The relic of the map read wrong. 

So the fire devours, so the moon melts away. The place marked only by its passing. Another way to round the count. A hunger that teaches the harness. A strop to mark the spot. Awareness there to watch the switchboard and rewrite the plot. The appetite there to whet.

It happens once we catch the habit. The words work us how they want. A simple touch exhumed by recognition. The trembling of the truth in your bones, the way you know you know.  It hurts past all nerve and purpose. A haunting of the heart.