please don't die

mercerism

his chrome hoverbike dodges between whorehouses of androids with pink hair implants and fake white fur, under black shooting stars made of pure glass. stops at a bar awash in blue and orange flickering signs, a police issued blaster at his hip: drinks a gallon of pure gasoline and lets his insides spark. nuclear thunderstorms pelt the moving billboards and kiss the pixels of spacemen on the moon. he sees her with a fake eye that swirls round and round in his head, tattooing Python on the insides of his eyelids. the acid rain fries his girl's circuits. she's beauty and grace, a half melted face. he's looking for someone to kill. a half human calamity, her lips lightning flashes that taste like synthesized sugar on his tongue, all liquid emotion and glowing eyes. her hands shake as they thread through his hair. if he peeled the skin back from her fingers, he would find titanium bones and empty metal husks of veins. her heart pulses in his hands. it's impossible to kill something that was never really alive.