Plum

There is a smooth point where your brain and heart break at the same time. Let’s call this place a fault line. A blood transfusion. An almost smile. A ravine.

Shock. Storm. Stroke. Dementia. Portable oxygen tank. Fly in mouth. Lupus. Diabetes. Ketchup on eggs.

Each time it happens, you scrape at too heavy words, panting. You come up empty in your attempt to syphon off the familiar throb-twist-twitch-ache of phantom limb and distant memory. You point at your throat of upside down ocean and stumbling. The ache is not all grief. Empty is not really the meat of it either.

The special and localized gratitude you observe when smelling exhaust, decay, nectar, that otherness words can’t express, staleness and 3 day old pee settles. It does not depart.

You know (have always known) this world of pressed mouths, of webs and line jumps. It is not yours. It’s distorted. Underneath it, in between the things that are seen and unseen, you huddle. You relax into knowing you’ve always been a part of this somehow. Sometimes you shudder with the yellow of it.

You see Black women everywhere. All of them simultaneously version and visitor of who you are now or will be. There is a lever of light culling and protecting you, even in this world of filth. Even as you are killed. Even as you die.

Everyone asks you if you remember.

And you think, these people are using minerals unfit for memory, kindness and attention to measure if yours is strong, intact, stable. They are asking questions about remembrance in a sea of unremembered things and people. In a denned cascade of blood and destruction. You ache everywhere. They ask about your pain levels. Is it manageable? Do you need more morphine?

You ache. Pain is something else.

They tell folks to excuse you for not being coherent. The way they measure coherence is also (of course) a cycle of overflowing disconnection. You will not use their words. They ask if you need a bath but this is not water. This is a plastic sheep circle painted orange trying to convince you that it is a peach.

You know peaches. You remember their juice falling sweetly against your lip. You remember your lips full and blooming. This is not bloom. You will not remember this axis.