Fifth Block.

There is a wire cord holding my wrist and plugged into my ears.  I hear nothing.  The computer screen in front of me begs me not to do my work.  I am three days behind and it is 4:26.  There is no time to do it now.  So I make my way to the bathroom after deciding to waste my time for the twenty-sixth time today.  I ask the cord to let go.  She complies reluctantly.  There is a caterpillar on my left eyebrow inching its way to my ear to ask me, once again, why I can’t be selfish.  “I’m not sure.” I reply.  The caterpillar swells in my right ear and I can no longer hear my own thoughts.  “I have gout,” the caterpillar replies.  I come back to my computer and the cord returns to my wrist, gripping tighter because I’ve forgotten to plug in my ears.

The girl beside me speaks but all I hear is the boy who cried rape and a metaphor of cookies and sheep.  I’ve been told I only hear what I want to hear.  No.  I just misheard.  She spoke of sexual assault and how it never stopped.  Chocolate runs from her mouth and I rush to lick it up.  I wish to speak so freely.  The chocolate is so sweet and saturated and it burns my throat like molasses until it spills over and out from the ducts of my eyes.  I have been penetrated and re-solidified in sweet chocolate.

Gilded, one might say.  That’s what I have been living in, they say, and I agree.  From the air, all I see is gold, but it is dirty and diseased below the surface.  A pile of rotting horses have been stacked on my heart.  My heart sinks.  He is not meant to hold that weight.  My first love dove down my throat to save what survived of my heart.  He rebuilt what was lost, but he took half to where he lives in England.  “Count my toes again,” I say.  He tries to teach me how to do it myself and I only remember how for a day or two.

Three things.  I have three things in the skin pocket sewed into my back:  a phone, a candy bar, and the absence of a chain I can’t find because my roommate cleaned again.

Author: Sidney Medina

I dedicate these works to the steady flow of strangers, acquaintances, and teachers who constantly shaped me, vanishing before I thanked them. They pulled me from a hole I didn't know I was in. View all posts by Sidney Medina