They built it into the walls, I saw it on television. Late night drive-thru told me on the sly. There it was, just for a moment, perfectly clear. All of the things I could see looked different. I read it between the lines. We talked it out.
We talked it through, dropping pearls like popcorn, spilling over with greasy subtext and salty segues. Hidden meanings.
Mistaken identities.
Anagrams, switched at birth.
I noticed he was wearing pistols, a bulge around his left hip. Extra clips. Brass knuckles and ceramic silencers. He had papers. He had orders. I had been out of touch for too long - the game had evolved. I was behind the times. Out of the loop. A day late and a dollar short.
There's a knocking sound in the hallway. Information pirates dressed as janitors cleaning up after handicapped children posing as businessmen. A dentist leers from inside a bathroom stall, a spittle-thin string of floss alerts him to my arrival. I pause to reconsider my teeth.
Something in the river. Something heavy that floats. A reflective sticker on the back of certain highway signs. A helicopter without running lights. Methadone in my milkshake, Prozac in my cancer. Bad breath. Dog whistles.
At home late things quiet down, just the occasional microwaved footnote or wrong number. I'll never answer that phone. My mother couldn't hear them up on the roof.
I'm three years older than my birth certificate says, I can tell by my hair.
I'll sleep when it's over.
"They don't know I know."
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