Wednesday, January 28, 2015
ALL THAT'S LEFT
All that's left are the sudden thuds of my fists into the cold memory foam. They sink if I push them a moment longer.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Careless
I have ripped open the bottom of my top lip. The weather is strange and I have been careless. Perhaps it was too dry when it wrapped around the cigarette—the lip, I mean—or was it not dry enough? Anyway, the lip is compromised. Its underbelly has come open like the hold of a plane in a hostage movie spilling escapees in parachutes. My blood is fleeing. And my face, alright just a minute ago, now feels like an overfull balloon with a pinprick in its side. The leak is not self-clotting, nor responding to blotting, so now I'm rooting around in a little drawer in this unfamiliar bathroom searching for a resolution, thinking Could I be poisoned by ointment? Should I sleep in a strange bed with a bandaid emerging from my mouth? Would I stain the sheets? Would I drain silently like an airmattress in the night?
The last time this happened, I was clambering out of an auto and gave away some DNA with a fifty rupee note. Fragments of my body may be all over the city—in wallet creases and pocket lint, perhaps in cash registers and banks, perhaps absorbed by other bodies through finger pads. Of course, I am already all over pipes and drains and garbage dumps, metro railings and poorly washed coffee cups. And now I will be a mysterious discoloration on this delicate little washcloth, and somebody's mother or washerwoman or guest will wonder, vexed, what I am before they elect, wisely, not to smear my blood all over their bodies along with soap. Perhaps there will be more of me in the dump soon, or perhaps I will become a rag and disperse myself over every surface in this house, mingled quietly with phenoyl or Lysol or window cleaner.
I didn't bargain for permanent residence when I entered a few hours ago. To contain the damage, I will slip out early in the morning, stained washcloth in tow, before anybody has the chance to offer me a cup of tea or a kiss or a knowing look and I am compelled to stutter, 'It's silly. I was careless. It's the weather, you know?'
The last time this happened, I was clambering out of an auto and gave away some DNA with a fifty rupee note. Fragments of my body may be all over the city—in wallet creases and pocket lint, perhaps in cash registers and banks, perhaps absorbed by other bodies through finger pads. Of course, I am already all over pipes and drains and garbage dumps, metro railings and poorly washed coffee cups. And now I will be a mysterious discoloration on this delicate little washcloth, and somebody's mother or washerwoman or guest will wonder, vexed, what I am before they elect, wisely, not to smear my blood all over their bodies along with soap. Perhaps there will be more of me in the dump soon, or perhaps I will become a rag and disperse myself over every surface in this house, mingled quietly with phenoyl or Lysol or window cleaner.
I didn't bargain for permanent residence when I entered a few hours ago. To contain the damage, I will slip out early in the morning, stained washcloth in tow, before anybody has the chance to offer me a cup of tea or a kiss or a knowing look and I am compelled to stutter, 'It's silly. I was careless. It's the weather, you know?'