Parasitism

The water spits back.

Its stare, abstract and opaque, does not reflect the face,

a field of blossoming grimaces and tombstones

that ooze with breathlessness and catharsis. Black and green,

miles of milestones never twice visited.

Measurement not only of distance traveled or battles raged,

but especially of the losses and convulsions that pave the path behind, 

a trail of defective genetic material never to be

restored to the damaged source.
Brittle surface of glass over simmering, dark mud
awaiting.

This well-worn dance with water, repeated to the exhaustion,

is the limbo posing as a ritual of passage, the reliable constant that entraps and isolates, hypnotizing the dancer with a life simulacrum:

undiluted stasis that floats on illusions of growth and survival.

Each step, a swift punch to the stomach - the dense oil

that rushes back from the clock engine to meet the impatient partner in crime.

The all-absorbing water moves to the music

of this intimate exchange of fluids, thickening itself

and spitting back,
-ticking-
humid constellations on the cheeks.

Pictorial art is also born: thousands of ephemeral figures

on the aquatic canvas, or maybe just a single ever-evolving painting, 

its running colors dressed by the rain.

The dancer's hidden knives are the brushes on his sleeve,

stinking of juices unspoken.
The dance simultaneoulsy draws and colors.

An approaching coda holds a mysterious answer: entropy? A shift in movement or perspective?

The water does not dance by sheer will -

it only reacts to gentle, violent swaying.
Curtains claim for an audience, someone to bow to,
but the canvas remains devoid of dialogue.
It refuses to reflect the face, or the heartbeat,
or the heartburn -
stubborn shades of watercolors do not grin at an admirer's eyes,
instead only returning the kindness in its purest form.

Thick water rehearsing its way back.