A Poem on 2.1

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I have a ghost in my mouth 

    curdling and foaming on the cracks

    of scorched lips.

Its smoky finger-tendrils slipping 

     through teeth clenched jail bars--

     an escape. 

(Words spat.

returned broken.)

No hatch here. So

     I swallow--

          No.

This ghost clouds and billows

     against my roof- mouth

     that flushes pinky white

     just like the shame

     singeing your cheeks.

Some things can't be 

     forced down.

It nail scrapes to a halt, 

shoves against my esophagus:

     pressing,

          pressing,

               pressing

its finger marks,

as if the skin could stretch

like latex.

This thing refuses

to become 

a part of me.

The inner hollows

and organs swinging

are foreign to this

foreign body.

It is

what

is it?

No directional force

no up 

or down to tell

it where to go.

So I cough and spit

aand hack nd hark 

and cuss.

I cannot touch 

this intangible,

I cannot handle

this deadness inside me.

Abigail Hobbs

Frederick, MD