I cut him. I cut him shallow. Only the tip, really. The skinny blade of the slowly curved, even sloping, 440 steel gave distinct pressure against the form fitting denim. It was an empty expression of a joke full of embarrassing honesty. I cut him. I cut him shallow, the denim fibers strummed.

The novelty of the pseudo nostalgia, the heavy marketing combined with lazily veiled head nods to the socially acceptable version of exploiting the sexuality of youth in public, never quite caught on with him.

“There was a face in the darkness, hovering over piles of bones. There was an image burned from the shadow cast by empty eye sockets. She was a beautiful maiden. Innocent only in effort but nothing else, as guilty in circumstance as the rest”.