Razorblade Tears

by S.A. Cosby

My drops of tears I’ll turn to sparks of fire. —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HENRY VIII

It was a beautiful day for a funeral.

The AC hadn’t so much conditioned the air as suggested it might want to cool down.

Getting drunk wasn’t going to make things easier. He needed to feel this pain. Keep it fresh in his heart.

Madison slipped from her stool and quietly vomited on the floor.

Is it wrong that I found that to be low-key hilarious?

But magic was just sleight of hand, and eventually the magician’s assistant had seen every trick.

The wound on his cheek was weeping like a broken-hearted bride.

“This is who I am. I can’t change. I don’t want to, really. But for once I’m gonna put this devil inside me to good use.”

I get where he's coming from but this line is kind of uncomfortable

Human beings were wired to get used to just about anything. That didn’t make you hard. It made you indoctrinated.

Men might walk on two legs but they were the most vicious animals of all.

“None taken, I guess. I just never knew I had it so good being straight and white,” Buddy Lee said. He tried to make it come out lighthearted, but the truth in the statement anchored it to the ground. Tex glanced at Ike, but whatever he expected to see was absent.

They’d killed a man together, so they were more than acquaintances, but he didn’t think they were quite friends.

Ike thought one of the worst things you could give a man was a clipboard. He’d been at the mercy of men with clipboards. They could keep you out of a gated community or put you on a bus to prison. Give a man a clipboard and watch his true nature come out.

But if all this has taught me one thing, it’s that it ain’t about me and what I get. It’s about letting people be who they are. And being who you are shouldn’t be a goddamn death sentence,”

It occurred to Buddy Lee that anything could be a weapon if you were dedicated enough. Even love. Especially love.

“No, hate. Folks like to talk about revenge like it’s a righteous thing but it’s just hate in a nicer suit,” Ike said.

A place where two old ex-cons kept outflanking him at every turn.

How does he think they got to be so old? Very Pratchett

Blood as slick and whispery as mercury poured from the wound in his neck.

This time they didn’t feel so much like razorblades.They felt like the long-awaited answer to a mournful prayer for rain.