Taps

I found a delete key in a crack in the earth. When depressed, it clicked against the nothingness between stars. I tapped at it like a parakeet at the mirror. I waited for my latest blog to fizzle and blink away. Half-expected a different diagnosis, a different new hire, the Mary Celeste of my heart to re-appear. For a year (it seemed) I pecked that button. Waiting for failed jokes to recoil in my mouth, for Galveston reconstituted like resurrection fern. All the hurtful things I said replaced by harmless air. I beat the button like I had a bid, like I had the question to their answer. Nothing buzzed with the sound of edits. The fissure's floor filled up with dust. Then I remembered the crucial discerning difference between the backspace key and that which I pushed now. The backspace rolls up the world behind it. Delete keys only kill ahead.