tar

you see someone pacing on a stage. the spotlight shines on them, giving them an ethereal glow. the highlights on their short black hair makes it seem like there’s a halo hovering on their skin. their eyes are downcast as they place one foot in front of the other, then they stop.

i miss when i could write.

back when i could rip my heart out of my ribcage, clutching it tightly in my fist, feeling it throb and pulse and squelch and squeeze.

back when i could feel the ache in my chest where the blood vessels hang loose and torn, blood spurting out of overpressured arteries and trickling out of underperforming veins.

back when i could squeeze ink through my heart, watch it flow through the vena cavae, through the semilunar valves, out the pulmonary artery, staining deoxygenated blue oxygenated red.

back when i would drench my fingers in the warm fluid and scrawl untidy letters with it, the brilliant vermilion slowly fading to mature crimson and then dull ochre on the white sheets.

they chuckle and wipe a hand over their face. you notice the dark circles under their now wild eyes. their cheeks are smudged with red from their fingertips.

back when i longed to put them, grotesque trophies, on display, and let it adorn the walls in all their organic glory. watch it drip down and leave trails of red stains, and then rot brown and blacken into waste…

back when people would pay attention to me. they would look! they would worry! they would care! they would stop the world and watch as i tore and splattered onto drenched canvas, and they would clap and cheer and demand an encore! then i would smile and bow and use my teeth and bite and rip and tear and claw at the paints, until-

they would love me.

but now? brown dust. the ink’s long spent. it’s barely glistening. it drips and drops and stops — useless.

the person sits down on the edge of the stage. they crouch on one leg, letting the other hang off the stage. a still inky hand, supported by the crouched leg, pressed against their cheek, makes them look like they are pouting.

you’ve forgotten me already.

i can see each of you leaving one by one. i know that you never cared anyway. i was so quiet after all. so responsible. so calm. so cool. never raised an issue.

[pause]

heh. why would i, anyway?

i had the talent, i had the gift, i had the brains. i had the work ethic. i had the results. i had the humor, even.

i had, i had, i had.

so how have i fallen so far?

wish upon a shooting star.

lie where stars go to die.

take a long nap in tar.

just let it envelop you. the blackness will slowly take over. it’s alright. you will feel yourself sinking deeper and deeper as the liquid melts over your iris, pupils, sclera. it will meld with your choroid. open the windows to your soul and let it all in. you won’t feel a thing. you’ll lie among the swallowed-up stars drowning in the dark.

maybe someone will turn the spotlight to you, see your outstretched arms reaching, and pull you out.

then again, maybe they won’t.

[pause]

you know? i think I’ll just lie here a little longer.