Chewing the Fog of Loneliness

It's a mouthful of broken glass,
my tongue unable to bleed,
so dead and dry inside.

It's a belly full
of buckshot, the guts
of nothing creeping out.

It's the feeling of feet
frozen to immobile bricks
when walking in a blizzard,
the wind resisting my fall.

It's straining to see street
lights when chewing
through the densest fog.

It's that metallic taste
that stains, the stage
when blood coagulates.

It's sour like laundry forgotten
in the washing machine,
stuck in the stiff crust
of a twisted towel.

It's feeling what can't
be heard, deaf with death,
despite tectonic plates
vibrating, waiting to shake
your spine's rejected tremors.

It's the smell of fumes that sting,
something in between
constriction
from a dentist's alginate
impression
and menthol clearing nostrils,
not the quenching beauty
leaked on the ground like
rainbows formed from gasoline.

It's a violent scene in movies
with the volume muted
or lacking background music,
like the aftermath
of the ban heist in Heat,
the gray ricochet of spent
bullets, echoes scratching
skyscrapers, when your worst
enemy is yourself, spilling
to asphalt on a crowded street.

It's the hollow void blinding
eyes in tunnels at night,
replenished with revenge,
the guttural taming of rage,
the peaceful violence
from words on a page.

But what it's like most
is screaming into a box fan
and only hearing silent snow.

Originally published in Bouncin' and Behavin' Poems on Medium.