I am dissolving
Slowly at first,
Bubbles so tiny you’d hardly notice
Tiny circles clinging to the wall of the glass
Decorative, even. Fashionable.
The good kind of bubbles.
They’re coming faster now, expanding and bursting in a frenzied feeding.
Now they avert their eyes,
Too much for comfort. For fashion.
I am foaming, uncomfortable, spilling over and leaving a sticky residue in my wake
I try to apologize but my lips and tongue are frothing, silent but for the fizzing.
My chest is open
A hole faded through my ribs
My heart beating as it breaks into tiny grains of sand that fall at my feet
Their gentle ksssh hushes me
Not that there’s anything left to say anyway.
My first instinct is to apologize
(I am always supposed to apologize)
But as the final bubbles pop,
I am little more than flecks of spittle
I meant something once
I was something once
But now I’m nothing more than memory
A sticky residue on a dirty bar stool
Emily Regan 