Hot Spit

My mouth fills with hot spit. A man’s face containing intention. A cartoon eye suspended in a field of white. My mouth fills with hot spit. You are hot and even against me and I can see all your flat planes. You’re a series of notes separated by gulps of heat or my hand grabbed out of air. Or my name. And I am a tide. Or I am a metronome on largo. You’ll wait for a click in a captured eternity. Then we will be liquid over a flame. Or we’re coming back together in time. Repeat the catch phrase. Tap out the password onto the tabletop like you made it your piano. My mouth sinks. The room spins on an axis. I have taken enough stimulants that I’m just all and only feeling. The outside is quiet. And I’m all feeling. All nothing. All knowing. A pyramid on a pyramid on the muscled backs of champion cheerleaders. The run of muscle against their spines. The gentle head flick of joy.  You come together into what is really just a chain of vibration. Let me send up a tray to heaven. I will roll you in my mouth. I’ll roll you against my breast. I’ll roll you with the dark ring around my iris. Let me roll you, this once. But just when the sun rises I’ll split you apart, into pieces and leave you inside the circle of my salt, alone with your thoughts.

Emma Barnes

Emma Barnes lives in the Aro Valley going through existential crises at about the same rate as firewood.