This is truth in fiction.

The way your lips felt. Like smoke against my mouth. Like I couldn't even be certain I had been kissed. Like perhaps it was pure imagination. Like maybe you weren't even real. You and your smoke lips, your cigarette kisses. And your high eyes.

Are you even real? Or am I imagining again so that I won't be trapped by the real people around me? Their rock hands and accusatory looks.

Do a trick.

Prove you're worth it.

I'm not.

And they prod anyway. Demanding. Prove it. Like a mathematical solution with no way back. Prove.

I can't.

I'm not.