Tick tock tick tock.
"When will my breath stop?"
Apparently not appropriate conversation to make at my family gathering.

The chicken is delightful. Would you give me the recipe? (murmurs of agreement around table)

"I wasn't kidding. I avoid pools, yoga and beautiful people that take my breath away so I don't have to deal with slight fluctuations in my oxygen intake!"

The table was set up perfectly by the kids, don't you think? Granted they forgot the wine glasses! (adults chuckle)

"I can't help but imagine those pillowcases in our chests that expand occasionally, as if rotating fans face them. It's an obsession of mine!"

Oh I think Johnny's about to fall asleep! Is there a guest bed room I can let him rest in? (assistance follows)

"Why won't you listen! When I take off my T-shirts, I count down and gulp the air before pulling the fabrics off, out of fear of being found dead, half-naked due to suffocation."

Oh Laurie I really shouldn't have dessert, I'm trying to watch my weight, but let me help you bring it out? (chattering of women on the way to the kitchen)

"Don't you know that I carry both an oxygen tank and an assortment of plants and trees wherever I go. I insert the tubes or the vines into my nose so that even when I'm gone my lungs may never stop rising."

(speaker dies the next day in car crash)

I never seem to remember her face when I close my eyes.
The hologram images that come to my mind do her no justice;
they are equivalent to a nanosecond
of which she represents all of time.

She tells me of the future
full of everything in this world, that is beautiful, that I should look to.
This is the one moment I hate her for.
Because I know there will come a time when
she will leave
and people will only remember her briefly in conversations as they say
"I'd almost forgotten about her."
I resent that future.

I practice my cries for when she dies
because after all
practice makes perfect
and that will most definitely be the time in my life when I cry the hardest.
Hopefully my tears will drown me, so I would never see another day, without her.

My sentences get rambled up.

They make sense up there, but not once they're down here. They lose their "umph", their clarity, their ingenuity. Some too short, some too long. Never comfortable or natural in my mouth but perfect and unflawed in that glorious thought bubble.

But I'm learning to say it all anyway. Despite uncertainty, despite unoriginality, despite "perfectness". Because the biggest "despite" I've come to learn is myself.

I think I'm always going to be that piece of gum.

Not the one that's a metaphor from Selma, whose all hateful because someone "chewed her up and spit her out". Not the one that got stuck in Mikail's shoe and just added to his already climbing pile of ****. Not the one that got caught accidentally in Isabel's best friend's hair and had to be cut out with scissors and made them trust each other even more.

I mean the one that was offered from that nice girl in school who had a nice backpack and whose name you'll have forgotten long before she's gone.

I'm absolutely terrified of being that piece of gum.
Almost as irrelevant as the girl herself.

Bzzz.

My head jimmies like a key with Tourette's and I feel
what can only be described as a sour taste in my ears.
If that's even possible.

Bzzzz.

My shoulders **** up like mountainous pimples,
that appear from nowhere, that I struggle to flatten.
If that's even possible.

Bzzzzz.

My hands are now styrofoam talons at my desk,
envious of others' measly yet cranberry soaked toothpicks.
Mine almost comfort that *******.
How is this possible?

Bzzzzzz.

I shut my eyes, and I hope he has dropped dead.
Though his black and yellow stripes should put him behind bars, he is here to stay in that never-ending cursed halo around my head.
How is he possible?

I pull at the strands of his shirts, his sweaters and his jeans.  
I become a seamstress and know he will come to me.

He buys new clothes instead.

I’m paralysed.

It’s the slap in the face I can’t quite remember, but the blood clawing through to the surface of my skin begs me to never forget.
It’s the cool whip of air that feels like daggers tracing my body, mocking acupuncture treatment.
It’s the strands of hair, descendants of Medusa’s snakes, that threaten to reach into my throat and wrap my lungs.

But I'm waiting for the moment after.

When I can touch palm to cheek, and caress the wound with a simple upturn of lips
When I can take a step back, out of reach from the outstretched weapons of murderers and into the arms of my sisters
When I can shave to beautiful baldness and pull the wraps loose to look like oversized sweaters

I can wait

My bed has absorbed my tears and wiped my cheeks dry as I have fallen asleep.
And for this I cherish my bed.

My bed has told me that it's moulded to the shape of my body so that the mattress can keep me warm from the cold, harsh winter.
And for this I'm grateful to my bed.

My bed has been all I've ever really known.
And for this I worship my bed.

But it never told me that it wouldn't ever let me go.
It never told me that it would make it harder to pull myself out.
It never told me that I would only sink further into its hold.