Swallowing Hard

The lamp in the corner asked how long we'd be needing it on. Flaunting its spectacle to every corner of the room. Omniscient spotlight of eternity molesting its disciples. knowing we were alive only in the most nefarious sense. Cold grease paint pretending eroding faces. Sad clowns framed in flesh and blood. The fractured memoirs of emotional vagabonds. Written in the keen stare of the light bulb.

In the dust on the dresser. In the wear of the clothes inside its drawers. In the muted tv across from the sinking bed. A letter. Or rather a series of letters written long before we'd ever met.

Addressing ourselves now from before we were us. Plastic men shivering on poorly painted chess boards. Tripping over every square. Tumbling. Rivers of people. Of experience. Smoothing every edge. Until it's impossible to remember anything but a vague sense of remission causing the cancer to shrink back below our skin.

Letting the days comes as they always insist. Fractures of life deep fried in our thoughts. Crisp and golden. Greasy and hot. Burning the roofs of our mouths as we try to swallow.