Fault Lines, by Brian Maycock

My lips crack when we kiss. I try to speak, my voice breaks. She stills me. We breathe in, breathe out. “It's OK,” she says. I catch the words on my tongue, like snowflakes once when I was young. The memory burns clear then is gone. Our hands brush and my skin begins to split. A line beginning at my fingertips spreads, divides. My shell is falling away. Beneath I am raw, hurting badly. I have been alone for so long. Around us the storm of the world swirls on but it has grown distant. These fragile moments are all.