it's always silence 

and silence never lies, it’s shrouded every memory 

that you still speak in my mind, when violin distorted melodies become too shrill

now muted on a black and white screen 

its twilight zone reels replaying, emitting the lowest and eeriest drone 

it’s almost as though you had already known, 

even before frozen fingers and cigarette holes 

even before you’d interwoven your real plastic soul with mine, sinking

its deafening quiet into

a 9-5 never quite awake enough to be lonely

type of life

and when another real plastic soul might make you feel

so painfully alive that in its absence,

that in the violence of its adolescent process,

the thought of dying now brings so much excitement

that you yourself begin to ponder why

when your husband’s faucet bleeds out empty compromise until

you’re elderly in his arms and the only real plastic crime

is that your real plastic soul

collides, shipwrecked on honeymoon isle

so tortured by his mild demeanor, 

so fortunate for your daily dinner tears, 

decorating the only remaining plaque from your college years,   

so permanently empty that its unspoken yet known 

in the deciding instant when you find yourself

completely alone 

as his arms fold into air, in on themselves

and you stare straight ahead as the final piece of your

real plastic life

becomes the only real moment in time