Thin Line

a.sy.lum

noun

1. the protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee.

2. an institution offering shelter and support to people who are mentally ill.

Ten degrees below zero. A fashion mitt crust bestows silence. Little panthers walking over seashore pebbles, biting lichen, angering their god. I knew it was out there now, then I don't. My vertices are overcome by the hissing of little fingers stroking a silk coat. An iron girder appears on Mars. Soap flakes.

I told the officer that the guy punched my fist with his face. Blue emerges. I know the capital of Cambodia but am not confident enough to correctly spell it. My ex-wife was a tree, that overbearing birch.

Footoohokaposapaskeneewa. I want to whip myself with a pink plastic skipping rope with white handles. I want to put hairspray in my hair and have it rain so that the hairspray runs down my forehead and into my eyes, stinging them. I want to lick a bomb as it explodes. I want to taste tragedy.

My stepmother dropped a Singer sewing machine on my head when I was eight years old. She died two years ago. I miss her.

Droplets of condensation run down the glass pitcher and pool in the shadow of its bottom. I am there, too.

"Scream as a far meant you helped Dagby die!" someone shouts. "Those pages were old! Old!" I try to watch my thumbnail grow. It takes practice, but when you stop trying to trick yourself into seeing something that isn't there, you might actually witness something that is.

I have a bag of teeth. There are seventeen total teeth. Four are mine: three baby ones I saved ever since I was little, and one permanent one (not so permanent though!) that I lost last year when a police officer kicked me it the mouth. I found the other thirteen in various places.

When I get grumbly, I put them in my socks and walk back and forth around here. But I can only do that at night.

Stems. Leaves. Sheafs. Skeins. I am ready to leave here. I have already left here. I am going right now.

There.

---

I put my bottle of Tropicana orange juice, a copy of Us Weekly, a bag of Fritos, and the Declaration of Independence onto the CVS counter. It's almost 8 AM. The cashier asks me if I'd like to sell my kidney for 25,000 dollars.

I politely decline her offer.

I get home and pat my Golden Retriever, Dusty, on the head as she greets me at the door. I'm going to take her to the park later, but for now I'm just going to lie on the sofa and watch old episodes of Press Your Luck on GSN.

No Whammy, no Whammy, no Whammy, stop.