word #7

tinkle

If a tinkle lost all sound, it would become a feeling. No more bells and china.

It’s in my stomach now, too near so I can’t tell you. So many syllables can’t slip through this throat-piece and escape. It’s tight there, where your memory lives. It’s cramped with too little breathing room. The air is polluted with nostalgia and scraps of origami paper.

The inhale chokes on a tear.
The exhale is freezing night air.

Black with stars, the sky that makes me remember home. I’ve lived too many places to pin it down. It’s there, without the dot on the map.

It’s you, but not with that face.

|