Jelly
I keep doors open after the end. I’m a glutton that way. I want to be wanted in the ways I wasn’t when I needed to be. I’m an adult neglected child in the pantry after midnight. I don’t know what I want. I’m empty — a bottle under the coffee table. Bumping into walls grabbing cans and shaking and tipping and sipping and looking. I’m sleeping in my clothes waiting.
I’ve died off in moments. Slivers. Segments. I remember times like thought bubbles scalded into my palm as I pressed the stove thinking it’d hurt, I’d wake up, but nothing. No smell. No feel. Nary a sizzle. I hoard emptiness. I’m a corpse groom. I puppeteer myself. My lizard brain behind the wheel of an oversized meat suit plucking vittles to sate a midnight wolf joie de vivre.
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I’m nervous when naked. My hands shake. Fingertips go white and cold. The ghost of me hovers above a quivering mess as he paws like a raccoon at locked trash. Two-finger pie shoveling groveling driveling sniveling man baby hope fucking some affection back into his veins let the needle hang, let the body fall, the spoon cool, mouth foam eyes roll come and save me no let me die I’m too big for that gurney.
You seem sad. Tender. Make me laugh. I dig into my eye creases as the creep creasing gravity plunder nobody gets out of here alive where’s my makeup the mime must go on. No show. No sleep. No love. No light. No. No. No.
I went mute. Cut my tongue out with finger scissors gag choking screaming no sound as she boards a plane. I moonwalk the conveyor belt — hands clasped. I need a souvenir. Backward vision smeared fingers on condensation glass I’m in the backseat of a Buick Regal driving south as Dad smokes out the front window.
I am a child. Trauma bondage baggage adage if you don’t deal it’ll devour you bear in the wild off the trail don’t stop running and it’ll never catch up with you until it does. Swipe. Off with his head. Wet nuzzle rummaging for a heart that doesn’t beat.
