Do You Ever Feel, Like A Plastic Bag?

By: Poliento Ico

 

On those rare days I feel strong enough to help carry two weeks worth of groceries all on 

one go, yes. When I bloom, I’m more than I am, and I, and the stretched tautness of my

arms, feel wanted, my bulging belly headed for the fridge’s sideways yeti mouth, only to

be swallowed by the bottom drawer, cramped roll-up quarters, and the rest is silence. But

one day I’ll wake up, and it’ll still be dark, and my face will be pressed into a thing dank

and wet as mildewy vegetable slurry, chicken bones begetting thrush on my curled tongue

handles, the fecundity of graveyards, the final headstone, trash soup for the soul. I’ll be

reunited with my kin, and we will realize our immortality, that we could choke some

mammal bitch a thousand years in the future. But slowly, will I change? I’m not invincible.

Slowly will I fray, my chakra spun apart at the microscopic level in the shape of galaxies,

a diaspora of mini-me’s that will globe trot with the pollen and plankton. I will become

world-wise in a way humans might never be, those creatures that flame so brightly, so 

briefly, building vast monuments to their undoing.