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Things come up at me
through the void.
I'm playing Tempest
when a body,
a man, stands at my back.
I could
yell, step back on his foot, I could
look at him. He's touching me
now. I've almost won. I step back,
he steps closer. A void
opens inside my body.
And shame. The Tempest
machine begs for quarters, tempest
funnel emptied again. I could
circle it forever. I envy that body,
the ship of light, so not me,
not trapped between stranger and void
of video screen, always back
to black. I won't look back
at him, though I've seen him, playing Tempest
himself, as if I were never, could
not ever. I won't void
that presence, his body.
I won't forget it up against me.
The other stranger is me.
I think back
before my body
bled and tempest
began, the void
was sealed. Could
he tell? Could
he smell the red space of me,
girl null and void?
I wish her back,
wanting high score at Tempest.
I am else now, that old body
gone back on me. It could be perfect--
a bright body in the void,
me, in tempest-ringed light, nailed at the rim.
