Booming, bassy shouts rip through the panelling,
And I think I hear a body hit the floor through the ceiling above–
My intended and his father.
After, he walks me home part way, then I lumber on alone.
I’m wearing yesterday’s rumpled clothes.
I smell like cat piss and look like a burnout with my hair uncombed and pale face red around the eyes.
The rail road tracks offer more seclusion, so I continue on there, following them homeward.
There are tangles of morning glories among the ruddy rocks and rotting wood, and I’m careful not to crush a single one with my clumsy boots.
The air smells like fennel, and the asphalt of the road seethes heat in the cool drizzle.
I could press myself to it, and it would be warm like a mother’s bosom.
The asphalt is empty;
The carnival week packed up gone overnight.
Every terrible thing inside of me condenses to a tangible, potent poison in my stomach.
Self-hatred and worry like black ink on my insides. I feel it undulating in my guts–
Every contraction of my muscles oozing it around,
Blood stagnant and numbing, like in a Vicodin near-overdose,
Like it’s last summer and I’m a hundred pounds, lying dazed and near-suffocated against the door frame.
The feeling that of almost just existing is addicting.
My loose shirt does not cover my stomach completely; I’ve near outgrown it.
Abdomen mostly flat, but with a slight curve to it,
Growing more and more nervous about what’s on the inside;
Reddish brown bleeding like the ruddy rail road rocks–
Implantation bleeding?
A baby boy with jet-black hair floating in amniotic worry-poison.
The tracks curve to the right, down a tunnel overgrown,
So I stick to the hedges beside the ally beside the tracks;
Avoid small-town-everyone-knows-you.
The road to home is longest.
I wish I could see the atoms in the tree bark,
The electrons in the atoms in the tree bark;
I nearly reach out and stroke the surface,
But my fingers twist around themselves,
Back to my side,
Staying inconspicuous.
I exhale, then exhale again,
As if I could exhale inwardly,
Exhale my lungs from themselves, and the rest would follow;
My lungs would swallow me up and spirit me away.
If I broke through the stifling air barrier,
There would be world a beyond it?
I tumble in through the bedroom window;
All is vacant but for the dog and dust motes.
-Atl Coaxoch
From Dust to Light 