I am tired, Waiting, fainting. I don't think I can make it. I'm trekking through a desert and you, you hold a bucket of water but you are so tall and I am a mouse, a terrified fragment of dust who would beg a sip from your hands if only you would look at me. You tease and I waver and suddenly I am drowning in the ocean and you are the darkness all around me so that I will never again know which way is up, what would bring oxygen and comfort and peace. I want to cry, be pathetic enough you'll relinquish your grip on the secrets you keep hidden inside your cheek. I can see them move when you speak, I want to pull them painlessly like baby teeth but when I reach you swallow. How do I ask for a sippy cup, when I am a child young and dumb enough to be held in the crook of your arm. How do I take revenge when I am held back by a hand against my skull and you will not forget, will not forgive, will not look at me. You will not look at me and I can feel the truth pulsing in your skin so you rip it off and bare nothing. You are forcing, inching, hinting, but you will not look at me, will not look into my eyes and give me what I want. Let me take the secrets from your cheek, I ask, and my only reply is a bucket held above the thirsty mouth of a babe in the scorching desert sands, teasing with knowledge, but you'll never let it drip. And you'll never, ever, look at me.