You say things that are not my name in short ragged breaths between the pillow and my hair and sets of lips. You say things that send the parts I keep in the rib cage on a slow walk around the block, needing air like it knows we need air to breathe. You breathe in ways, we breathe in a language. I haven’t heard a tongue like this in a long time. Breath that speaks, breath that says please. In short fits of sleep the color of the room changes and I start to understand the mythos of old tales where people alter themselves in daylight, stave of the cycle of tomorrows. I’d sell anything to keep the sun down awhile longer, to take a shower.
Before this, she had been thinking a lot on how the heart pushes and pulls thick through the veins that lace her body, thinking she can see the flush rush hour beneath her alabaster skin. She has gone to get her blood drawn just to climb into the chair and feel the tired nurse fumble in rubber gloves against the insides of her arm. She watches as the needle mines beneath skin for a point of entry, tugging in suggestion. She sits there just to watch the viles fill, to be labeled and set aside. And then goes home to be alone and think about where her blood goes next.
It is not fair to say I feel, when feeling feels separate from what I can control. It sounds as if I own them, but they own me. I’m still rolling around in something you said, and taking those long hard walks around the block.
THE LITTLE BLACQUE BLOG 