(no subject)
You see blood circulating out of veins, into arteries, diffusing through capillary beds, sailing to the heart. When people worry, you see them close their eyes and breathe through their noses until the skin outside their ribs becomes translucent and fragile. And when they breathe out, the skin grows like fruit. You see their organs fill up, shade brighter, and deflate. When people lie, you find that their kidneys, liver, and heart fall an inch. And perhaps when nervous or infatuated, they float.
When a person went scuba diving and came up too quickly, you would see that the pressure would cause his blood to bubble. Chemists would call it boiling, but children would write fairy tales. And in the end, the diver would only tell you that, “in retrospect, I’m the better for it.” Or perhaps he would look at you, jelly you in his eyes and darken you with his pupils. Perhaps he would say, “I’m the worse.”
He would tell you about the dinner conversation he had before he dived. He would tell you that the conversation was the reason why he dived. He would tell you that the excess of words, the quality of them, suffocated him in the bulimic air, inflated his lungs with the cotton of vowels, soaking into the wisps what might have been his next breath. Instead, he inhaled quietly when he heard her say it.
“It is a beautiful day, though I wish the ice-cream seller’s melody were in a major key,” she told him. “I’ve no inhibitions, and I can see that your toe-nails are yellowing through the grates in the table. My hands are cold, I am so incredibly cold.”
He told her, “Your mouth is beautiful.”
“I want to work in a coffee shop. I want to lean over the counter and press myself into coffee grounds.”
He told her, “Your mouth is beautiful.”
When a person went scuba diving and came up too quickly, you would see that the pressure would cause his blood to bubble. Chemists would call it boiling, but children would write fairy tales. And in the end, the diver would only tell you that, “in retrospect, I’m the better for it.” Or perhaps he would look at you, jelly you in his eyes and darken you with his pupils. Perhaps he would say, “I’m the worse.”
He would tell you about the dinner conversation he had before he dived. He would tell you that the conversation was the reason why he dived. He would tell you that the excess of words, the quality of them, suffocated him in the bulimic air, inflated his lungs with the cotton of vowels, soaking into the wisps what might have been his next breath. Instead, he inhaled quietly when he heard her say it.
“It is a beautiful day, though I wish the ice-cream seller’s melody were in a major key,” she told him. “I’ve no inhibitions, and I can see that your toe-nails are yellowing through the grates in the table. My hands are cold, I am so incredibly cold.”
He told her, “Your mouth is beautiful.”
“I want to work in a coffee shop. I want to lean over the counter and press myself into coffee grounds.”
He told her, “Your mouth is beautiful.”