Blank Screens
Rocks settle in my stomach. One rolls down my throat, getting caught and making it pull tight. It feels like a fresh shoelace, taught and ready to be looped into a bunny ear on a third grader’s new kicks. Smoke still finds its way into my gullet, squeaking its way past my clouded vocal chords, clinging to my lungs, glazing my
throat
Yum. The pain that comes with his dagger tongue tastes sharp like blood. It rushes to my head and gives it a slap to make me
spin
with thoughts about a dark room, the marijuana haze misting our line of vision to the TV. But that was another day, not long ago, when I was not alone like now. Luckily, another rock falls from my head, losing brain cells, knocking down my throat and into my tailbone, twisting my spine with
grief
I watch a different show now. It’s morbid. Empty chest cavities, hearts rotted away with time and earth, hollow rib cages, perpetual grins, eye sockets smiling with surprise. I envy them, these bodies on TV which no longer feel their
blank spaces.