vinegar.

i guess you could say i feel like i've been scraped clean. with a sharp metal spoon, my insides have been scoured. when i walk i rattle a little, my stomach is hollow and the heat from my heart makes me sweat.
i talk to all these fractured people and they have so much to say. one said that it was like the clouds parted and she could see the light. one said it was the right thing for him to do for the time being, he was just ready. maybe they just talk like they know what they're doing. or what they've done, because it's hard to go back. the sharp smell of vinegar in your head, the windy feel of falling over your face. a quick alertness settles over them and it was time to move forward.

liar liar

there is this pressure on my chest now, like i've pulled the muscles in my esophagus by lying over and over again. my hands keep moving all the time but i don't know what they're saying.
i know that growing up is painful. i thought that pain subsided after adolescence, like white waves spreading over flat, wet sand, the bubbles of foam disappearing into the ground. the absorption of all that unbounded energy that made you say all those stupid things.
but people they grow their whole lives. i guess i never thought about the growing pains you feel when you're twenty-one, or thirty-seven, or turning forty-eight.
my throat feels swollen, the glands in my neck tender and achy. i'm a liar girl, i think. my hands keep moving like they've got something to say. i'm a liar girl and these bruises on my chest, this push in my lungs are telling me to slow down. a body that talks.