Red rubber cheeks rub against a tongue too dull and wet to pop anything.
With water in the throat, she chokes and breaks against a hand, all the nails bitten down,
nobody cries.
Those of us who saw it don’t think it was out of bounds.
We all stared and pat ourselves dry.
The hand is just that, calloused and cracking.
Didn’t know who or what to feel bad for.
We lit our cigarettes and stuck one out to be courteous
And I could feel the young woman’s face from the floor
Telling us to fuck ourselves for watching.
I tell her it isn’t like that at all.
I tell her my routine. I tell her how my eyes cross when I’m tired. How I shiver on the toilet.
I tell her how I’d burst. I tell her how my arm came off and hit someone in the shin,
And how my chin hit the laptop and chipped the first row of keys on impact, how my chest
anchored me and how I took the cigarette, with a similar distaste.
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