Humidifier

This morning when the humidifier gurgled my coworker just said to her computer screen, “It’s the dog drinking out of the toilet.”

so it went.

I was in a little band in a little bar. This little band this little bar – one bar and then another. Had friends I could embrace – slow smile on my face. Cut my hair over the sink – wink wink. Kicked stones with the tops of my toes, ran in the cold from place to place. Frozen pace. Stiff legs but laughing, mouth open, wind filling in all the space. Didn’t wonder what happy looked like. Looked around sometimes but mostly it was one foot and then the other – another bar and then this little bar. Another. Tugging on my own earlobe, hands busy with a bit of string in my pocket, flicking a guitar pick – flick flick. Fingertips in her hair like the easiest thing I could do but new – always new, hair around my finger with closed eyes and weightless. It was now then, I remember.

And then we got famous, so famous. The band and me and the band but
so
mostly
me.
Forget what it was like to have strangers pass over – look over my shoulder – get to a table before me at the coffee shop. Cardboard cutout, flammable, I swivel on my heels and eat most of my meals, or so they tell me.
In a car, out of a car. In a car, out of a car.  And another.
Fights with razor blades coming out of our throats. Hoarse, dry, skin tight. White. Eyes in my head like smooth stones, dry sockets, dry bones. Scooped out, flattened. Coming into rooms like an empty envelope, under the door, along the floor. But I can’t get away from all the staring, even if I paint myself to the wall.
I could be on fire. I could be on fire.
She would be full and shining and the blood would be in her cheeks, coming up from the bed with a smile, her shoulders round and plump and pink and where would I be? What is there to see?
Me. me. me.