BILE IN THE BACK OF MY THROAT
i ride in the middle backseat of the car, my two best friends seated in front of me. there’s a special kind of hollow bile in the back of my throat that occurs in moments like these – eventually, it drains and sits at the bottom of my stomach in a bitter, curdled twist.
it’s strange and starving and deep.
l o n e l i n e s s.
not the regular kind, but the foreign sort that invades and consumes you during the times where it has no right to. not with your friends. your best friends. but there it is, sucking your lungs so far down into your feet it takes an army of resolve not to crumble down with it. you hate yourself for feeling it. not the surface hate you’re unafraid to say out loud but the gruesome ugly hate that stitches thorns into your sides and heats your face in shame.
it’s your fault.
no.
it’s their fault.
no.
but some part of you blames it on them and with that blame boils anger in the void behind your sternum and it
rises, and rises, and rises
and you let it rise until it’s plundered your
belly and chest and neck and head
and you can’t choose between wanting to disintegrate or wanting to explode.
but those options aren’t real, are they? so instead i just sit, eyes burning, staring straight ahead, pretending that one time they will notice and maybe even that one time they will understand.