The words in small white balloons
slide into each other under an ink mist
as the paper puckers. I strain my eyes
to read the slippery words aloud
to the girl who has mashed her cheek
into my wet shoulder as the world within
the cheap newsprint turns
flimsy and pulpy. Looking back, I realise
we shoud've stayed in that four-color world
a little longer. Escape for as long
as we could. Stave off Topeka, Kansas,
the whole goddamn world, by falling
into another one. The panels may bleed
beyond their borders, but stay contained in our hands.
The world outside bears down
like a freight train. But on that day,
a good day for reading comics,
she presses into my arm, eager to see,
and we indulge in the power
to inhabit a world a page removed from our own.
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