Geometrics

She will drown in this sorrow; she will drown.

The words sloshed around her mind like empty rain, crashing in waves and torrents ‘gainst the back of her eyelids til she squinted to keep the screams at bay. Shallow breathing, her cheeks rubbed raw like perfect egg shells, she steadied herself against the bar, clasping the rounded wood.

“It’s not like it was before. It can’t be.”

Her whisper sounded like the watery pleadings of a lover who already knows they’ve lost the fight. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and let her head droop between hunched shoulders, the fabric of her t-shirt ridging between the blades.

Soon would come the doctors and the lawyers bereaving what the doctors had done and her mother wiping away tears that stained her skin and her father, nodding behind the walls as he brushed his fingertips against the belly of his flannel shirt. Images like flashes of fire swam before her face and with a violent huff, she blew them away. She had recovered, she’d been a medical marvel, the doctors had said! Children had written her, told her what an inspiration she was. The television cameras hadn’t left for weeks. And now in an empty studio it had all washed back upon her, drenching her clothes and sinking into her poisoned skin. With a crippling cry she sank to the floor, pressing her palm to the underside of the wood and resting a cold forehead against the mirror. A silent and stoic face held on her features, lips twisted in a painful grimace even as her heart squeezed itself dry.

A trickling sob escaped her and she clamped a hand to her lips, shaking her head violently, biting scolds to stop her. Like a fallen ballerina she crouched, sucking in gulps of air and tasting the salt on her swollen tongue. Blood swam in her veins, gushed out like a broken spicket and already she knew, it would all return. She’d tasted her freedom, felt it sprinkle her skin like peppered needles.

And now it would all be back.

The questions, the wires, the chittering monkeys that bounced in her face – it would ALL be back.

And again, the world collapsed.

.me.