ANJA CHIVUKULA
SPECTACLE
Between the body count, the clouds unfurl, menthol tropical, aerosol mystique, nothing to see by but the pulse and throb, rhythmic crushing in of limbships-hands, we know each other only by our body heat, jumbled close enough for claustrophobia. A floor up, breezes breathe through open doorways, cooling gasps of personal space, the flickering owf ceiling lights, but I don’t want it, no listless couches small-talk-full, no keening of the sterilewhite, don’t drag me back to him, wheezing with the bi-pap, push-pull, compressed air and consciousness not quite fitting in the same tired body, he feels like there’s a fog in his throat, my mother said, he feels like he can’t breathe, and then he didn’t. I wipe an arm across my face, slick with someone else’s sweat, salt-burn familiar as the gulps of humid air, stale, jostled by the basement crowd. We came to find our midnight sun, all motion pulled to glinting streaks, a speaker full of garish noise, the panting and the bodies.
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