th3Alch3mist

Cold stones under the hot sun, when a grandmother becomes a pack mule to carry unnecessary jackets. She conquered the Mayans at seventy-two, rolling our skulls down their steps; pausing only to skin our eyeballs as needed. She watched, amused and jacket laden, when we sunk our toes in sand and gelid silt forgotten under the earth's crust. Her tongue dripped aloe and soft words when my screams woke me at midnight. Her cool hands soothed my blistered shoulders.

Whiskey voices whisper silk, laying truthful lies open, spill them slowly out. Ragged nerve endings hum, thrumming raw and useless, trick trembling hands. Vapid air claws to escape, breaking tissue and bone, rots without release. Humidity slips out hot, forming igneous beliefs, wet and rimmed with red.