Difficulty Swallowing

Some things in life stick to our throats. Whether its the crumbs of memory or modernitys unsavory realities we often reach for water just outside our grasp. We bite our tongues in defense trying to swallow the shoulder-chip we realize isnt a mirror: its one panel in a 99-cent store disco ball keychain still tacky from the choking advisory. It might not make sense to you but this was meant to be beautiful to make you want it so bad you could taste it--a perspectival ambrosia those points of view refracted in the brazen cracks and jagged pills. But perhaps the exposure of female experience is seven years bad luck instead. Ive been told my nectar lacks subtlety by people who know a thing or two about at least five things: displacement alienation the regulation of bodies both within and without control the [un]common American narrative loneliness. But the question is whether these things are all the same that gunk on the melting pots mirrored backsplash we cant seem to scrape off. If you cant stand the heat its cuz the kitchens on fire we say roof razing to burn. In search of answers you look down my throat playing the dentist to thwart self-drought. You tell me that fruit acids been rotting my surface enamel never mentioning the decay in the back of my teeth. And I smile in all-American beatitudes at the shallowness of the male gaze that always fails to penetrate what lies beneath. Are you disoriented yet? Come. Drown with me in a puddle face-deep.