Coffee Table

    She held his face in her hands like it was the whole world. But he didn’t mean anything to her. The other girl was pouring a drink in his mouth while she cradled his head. They took care of him as if he were some vulnerable and sick king. They nursed him through his drunken night and left him alone and sleeping by morning. 

    She remembers going outside, crumpling by the white fence and just screaming out crying in heaving, soggy sobs. The white fence and the bright sun made her imagine that she must be in high contrast and that her face would be like a yawning space of flesh color with great black holes heaving and gasping in the sun, like an enraged and bleached tadpole of a person.

    Because, you put a plate down on your coffee table and then you light a candle so you don’t waste matches every time you take a hit and then it’s burning so long that a weak spot forms in the side and the dam breaks and the wax pours down onto the table and then you start playing with the wax while watching tv and you’ve thrown the burnt match and pieces of wax onto the plate and then the plate becomes just for wax and burnt ends of things and then you realize you live in a house with two plates and that later you’re going to be cradling a man’s head as if it were the whole world and you sink and you go outside and cry with a wide open mouth like a gasping tadpole in the sun.