Razor Blades In The Wall

Dust and lead and a strange mysterious white powder

Drifted across the cramped space

Of a bathroom torn apart by the eager claws of prybars,

Screwdrivers, and hammers.

Caught in the rays of early morning sunlight,

It looked like snow.

But it was summer and it was hot.

.

Sweat trickled down the neck of the man

Frozen amidst the rubble,

Tools discarded at his feet.

Humid air cluttered up his lungs beneath the mask

Held to his cheeks by stapled rubberbands

And a lone metal bar across his nose.

He was a statue in the middle of a museum.

.

The walls were missing.

He had ripped the plaster pieces off himself,

Tossed them out the small little window

Crouched near to the floor

And down into the mess of untended prairie grass below.

The bones of the house remained with the thin metal veins

Carrying water and iron and life through the structure.

.

Sweat continued to fall,

Saturating the thin, ratty collar of his shirt

As he stood unmoving,

Blue eyes fixated on the polaroid

And breath held carefully in his lungs.

The dust touched his eyes.

Tears welled, slipped, and fell.

.

A woman stood in the picture, basket of daisies in hand,

Wearing a glittering smile as bright as the sunlight

Coloring her skin golden.

Her eyes were squinted shut from the force of the smile.

Her sandal-clad foot kicked up toward the rose bushes.

And the floral dress, yellow like the heart of the daisies,

Danced behind her in the wind.

.

The joy was as warm and exuberant as the heat of summer

Choking the life out of the southern-facing bathroom.

Her hair, long and brown and touched by waves,

Seemed as soft as the ancient plaster but hardly as fragile.

Age veiled the picture

But she was young and beautiful,

Full of something like love.

.

The man clutched the photograph between filthy fingers,

Keeping his prints to the pale frame of white

Surrounding the beautiful gold image of summer.

She was the princess of California dreams,

Glowing in the blue eyes of Midwestern monotony

Like a saint, a mystical creature

Of myth and legend and lore.

.

So why was she stuck in the walls,

Sitting atop the pile of used, rusted, and dull razor blades?

Why was she folded in half and shoved

Through the porcelain pink slot beside the bathroom mirror?

Why was this golden radiance,

This effortless smile of a perfect day

Thrown into the wall like dangerous garbage?

.

The blue eyes blinked and peeled away from the image

Back to the untouched tile on the wall.

Razor blades, the raised font read on the pink glossy tile.

Danger, danger, danger.

These things can cut.

They can bleed you dry,

Poison your blood.

.

The polaroid suddenly lost its innocence,

Humming with the urge to cut.

She was a California promise,

Sharp around the edges with a pretty blade to her smile

That needed to be thrown onto the pile of razors in the wall,

So that she could not slice open another heart

And bleed it dry of its summertime dreams.

_____________________

If you haven't heard of it, there used to be razor blade slots in the walls where you could dispose used razor blades. So, uh, the next time you think about ripping out those bathroom walls, remember there might be little piles of razorblades there?