Moths

Now, when he’s not around, the many men so tender walk with her because they see in her a sad, decided mind. They extend their arms, mouths agape; wide-looks that speak of bewildered rapture.
You see, people are always drawn to dying sounds: shut off sirens, abruptly unplugged radios, and the soft, dwindling rhythm of warm, human breath. So, despite slicing through streets and weaving around strangers expertly, she draws in the city and its air slowly, and slower still, until the shallowness of each breath gives no rise and fall to her chest. And hers is a forward death march, horrifying in its dignity.
Regardless, her companions reach with much strain; each finger an eager bone threatening to extend out of the flesh that limits us to ourselves. But, she does not allow the press of strange skin, because she remembers that we always tell our children never to touch dead things, anyways.
"I don't mean to make you follow every lurch of my rumpled heart," she offers uselessly, aware there is no discouraging the confused, reckless, sometimes obsessive, blend of love and pity the wounded inspire. In the end, each step will matter more than all the words the space of her mouth could hold.