I will wake when you pull at my sleep, with night-old crust in my eyes and streams of running saliva stained at the side of my mouth. I will wake with my eyes crusted over where I can feel the sound of crumbling as I painfully open them, as me eyelashes untangle themselves from one another; it hurts to get detached.
The crackling noise reminded me of the shell of a single boiled egg in my sweaty palms, holy in my palms, only in my palms, reflecting the light, cold and bright... reminded me of the tries it took to peel it, having its bits beneath my nails, a pinching pain at the tips of my fingers, garnering my attention and frustration.
Until beyond the matte surface, was the sheer slickness of the egg itself, lathered in its own everything, equally as cool and bright as its shell. I bring to my mouth the cool white and it tastes fresh and crispy as well. You can feel the deviation as it rests on your every taste-bud, with the rotting taste of the rotting food from days before, now indistinguishable under the layers of blue-gel toothpaste... and that's why it feels so good— the egg.
But when my eyes are guided to the remainder of the egg still between my pained fingers, the yolk stares at me; it's green, it's yellow. An eye of a body, in an open casket, or on the ground, or on the bed; still and unable to respond. And compared to the body— the egg— it is dry and soft and crumbles easily, the yolk stares at me continuously within no frame or period, but a picture, a distorted image of a dream.
Of an eyeball woken from their sleep with night-old crust in its eyes and streams of running saliva stained at the side of its respective mouth. I woke and I boiled a pot with water.
-
326 words
-- Leila N.
