Collapse by Matthew Dexter

When we were children we would lie on our heads in the attic as rainwater dripped down against the back of our throats. As the roof got worse, it began to splash in our eyes. You held me naked, and we pretended it was a waterfall until we heard the pull-down ladder creak and Dad would walk up the wooden steps to carry us back to bed. He read Dr. Seuss books with broken spines as raindrops pelted the weeping willow beside the window, keeping melody with his guttural voice and the beat of his irregular heart, broken only by thunder and illuminated by sadistic flashes of lighting that lit up the wrinkles in his fingers, his quivering eyelids, and painted his irises an eerie orange against the blue Muppet Babies blanket. The bed would shake with thunder as the dog hid under it, and each morning after sunrise when the sky was clear again and birds were singing, the hole was bigger, always growing, the thirst never ends.

© 2011 Matthew Dexter

Matthew Dexter lives in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Like the nomadic Pericú natives before him, he survives on a hunter-gatherer subsistence diet of shrimp tacos, smoked marlin, cold beer, and warm sunshine. http://MatthewBDexter.wordpress.com

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