Tongue

I stared at myself in the mirror and wondered what it would be like to reach into the back of my throat and pull out my tongue. Would it wriggle like a fish? Would it lie limp and lifeless? Would it spit back all the hateful and hopeful things I’ve said? Would it relax finally free? Would it stain my white countertop, or would it simply laugh at me?

My tongue, feeble, filthy, and unsettled in my mouth. Always licking at the back of my mind. Always tasting something putrid, something fine. Itching to say but refusing to yield. My tongue oil, my thoughts water. Slipping and sliding away from one another.

I hate this. This feeling of disconnection, of isolation from myself. Isolation from others because what is thought is not what is said. What is felt is not what is expressed. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anything more than the sound of my own voice struggling to gain traction during a conversation I really wanted to have. Unable to stick to the emotion, delivering half-said sentences, and blurry vision.

And now that I stand here staring at my tongue, trying to spot where the disconnection is, a singular thought overwhelms me; I am damaged. Something went wrong along the way, or on the day I was born, that causes me to be always misunderstood.

It’s of no use to me anymore. I will rip it out with pliers, with tongs, with the knife I used to chop onions earlier, and leave it here. Maybe I’ll drop dead in a pool of blood, something, finally, poignantly said.

“I hate you,” I whispered. There’s something satisfyingly vile about saying this while looking directly into your own eyes. The full weight of the words fills your body. Belief without bounds. Might be the truest thing I’ve ever said.

Tears fill the eyes of my reflection.

“Don’t cry,” I scold her. “Don’t cry. Don’t you do it.”

But she’s doing it. Big, salty tears run down her cheeks. Her lip begins to quiver. She’s falling apart again. She’s losing it again. “Stop,” I say. “Stop. Stop. Stop. God damn it. Stop.”

Disappointment rages, and before I can think about what I’m doing, my fist slams into the mirror. Cracks spread out under my knuckles, and I know I shouldn’t be doing this. I know I shouldn’t let myself be so unhinged, but I’m still swinging, and the glass is still breaking, and there’s a million sobbing mes begging me to stop. And I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck. I just want the damage to be free. Get me out of my skin. Kill me and let me come back as someone new.

Blood spews from my knuckles, speckling the walls and my countertop. I can’t feel any pain, only the repetitive swinging of my arm. This is what people must feel like when they black out during a fight and just kept hitting them. The motion is addictive. Intentional. I didn’t want it to end.

That is, until I felt a definite shift in my grip as my middle knuckle shattered and the bone in my hand slid back into my wrist. I let out a wail of pain. My world suddenly technicolored and vivacious. Saturated in presence. Absorbed by the moment. I was a body once more. More me than I knew I could be. Nothing existed beyond this pane. I was the single population of the universe.

I gripped the countertop with my good hand, fighting the urge to hurl. My broken hand sang. The bone moved loose amongst the sinew like a violin bow against a string. My knuckle a sack of sharp pebbles.

I looked up into the shattered mirror. My face plenty, pale and sweating. My eyes full of pity and concern. Above my forehead, a spot of white shone out from the exposed wall. I wondered if I was going to pass out as the aura grew and blinded me. I tried to sit down, but the tile kept sliding away. The ground spun as I drifted toward the ceiling. I need to sit down; I kept thinking. I need to get on the ground before I pass out. But the ground didn’t exist anymore, and I was somehow floating and stable in and out of space. The whiteness swallowed me. The pain immeasurable. I released my resistance and let myself spin.

When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t gauge where I was. I assumed I was on the floor of my bathroom, but maybe I was in the hospital? One of my neighbors must have heard me scream. Called someone. My hand ached. My right shoulder heavy as lead. Slowly, my vision came back.

But my surroundings didn’t make any sense. I wasn’t in my bathroom, but I wasn’t in the hospital either. I kept blinking, hoping my eyes would adjust on something familiar, but the view only got stranger as my sight became clearer. Large shiny black hexagons zipped through the air like frisbees flung by giant hands. And though there were many, and they looked out of control, they never collided. Each time I thought two were going to crash, they would divert from their path, allowing just enough space for safe passage.

I was mesmerized by their exactness and tried to predict which ones would deflect next, but I was always a little off. The moment slightly out of reach. I sat up to get a better look and startled. I was atop my own black hexagon hurtling through the air. Hexagons sailed above me, below me, and next to me. Another hexagon spun wildly towards me. Closer and closer until it filled my entire view. I looked for a place to bail. Maybe I could drop down onto one below me, but as the hexagon closed in, I froze, braced myself. Ready to be thrown. I closed my eyes.

A soft puff of air passed over my face.

I opened one eye. Then the other. I was looking straight down into a sea of never-ending hexagons. My instinct told me I was falling, but my reality said otherwise. Although my hexagon raced through the chaos, I never felt unsteady. There was no lump in my stomach as it dove or imbalance as it twisted and turned. I wasn’t thrown to my death or smooshed between two. I was still, calm atop my flying shape. Once I realized I was not in fact going to die, I relaxed and accepted the steady rhythm. I felt like a kid in a spaceship, evading enemy fleets as I tore through space. It was exciting. Being so close to danger.

Another hexagon was fast approaching. I lay on my back with my head propped up on my arm and watched it. As it neared, my excitement grew. Here it comes. The narrow miss. But the hexagons didn’t miss; they connected. Silently, no jolt or clamorous breaking. Less turbulent than two feathers touching. Still, my heart raced. The two hexagons spun for a moment before settling. I stood up and inspected the joint. It was seamless, as if they had never existed apart. Tentatively, I stepped over onto the second hexagon.

Some part of me expected to be rejected to slide off the surface and plummet into the abyss. But I was as steady here as I was over there. A person was standing on the far edge. I walked toward them, hoping to get some answers as to where I was. A soft sucking sound filled my ears and grew louder as I approached. They turned around when I was just behind them, and I froze.

I was looking into the bloodshot, tear-rimmed eyes of myself. She was haggard and skinny, limp, dull hair, her limbs hung at her sides like moss off a willow, but her mouth was what I couldn’t stop looking at. A large, swollen tongue protruded from her lips. Her jaw and neck were wet with saliva.

She sucked at her spit, “Mmmhhhmmmhhhh,” she said. “Mmmmhhhmmmmhhhhmmm.”

As I looked into her eyes, the bulging tongue pulsing, spit running down her chin, fear and rage coursed through me. What a pitiful creature. What a poor, sorrowful sufferer. I wished I hadn’t walked over here. I wished I had stayed on my own hexagon. A ribbon of anger whipped through me. How dare she stand there mocking me? Looking ridiculous.

“Mmmhhhmmmhhhh.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Mmmhhhmmmhhhhmmmm.”

“Shut up. Stop it. Be quiet.” I couldn’t understand her, but I hated to hear her speak.

I pushed her off the edge and leaned over to watch her fall, but she had already disappeared amongst the rushing hexagons. I knelt and tried to spot her, looked under the hexagon. There she was upside down. I backed up as she crawled over the edge and sat in front of me, a cross expression on her face. She was disappointed.

“Mmmmhhhmmm.”

“Whatever.”

“Mmmhh.”

I crossed my arms and looked away. She kicked me in the knee.

“Hey!” I yelled. She raised her hands, gripped the sides of her head, and unscrewed her skull. She removed the bone and tilted her head down so I could see. Inside was a flurry of color. Like chalk in water. Deep and wonderful colors. Floating smokey with a slight pearly iridescence. I wanted to dip my fingertips in just to feel the consistency.

As if knowing my thoughts, she grabbed my hand and stuck it in.

It was squishy like Flarp. Soft, smooth, and slightly cold. I scooped some out and let it slip through my fingers. It was lovely, gooey, sensational slime. I dipped both of my hands in and brought a bowl of it close to my face. Shadows and blooms mixing and separating. I lifted it to my lips, surprised myself, and sipped some. I held it in my mouth for a moment, unsure if I wanted to swallow.

It tasted clear. Not like water or air, like an orb. Like tasting the shape of a dewdrop, and when I finally swallowed, clear coated me down to my toes. It filled my lungs and my bones before settling in my brain, cooling and simplifying my thoughts like a deep breath or a good stretch. Hunger I didn’t know I had was satisfied. The coupling of unseen hands starved for touch. I had never felt such peace.

Suddenly, the hexagons around us stopped, redirected, and headed our way. As they did, our conjoined platform began spinning wildly. Our hair lifted and frenzied around our faces, and for the first time since arriving, I felt the sensation of movement in my stomach.

The onslaught of hexagons crashed into each other, linking and picking up speed. I looked at myself, but she had her eyes closed.

The hexagons amassed into a wall of black. I tried to wake her, but she wouldn’t move. I looked for an escape, but there was no way out. Soon, we would be part of that black mass, and I felt deeply in the pits of my gut that it would be the end for both of us.

I ran to the edge and peered down into blackness, looked up to see only blackness closing in. I returned to my self. She was sleeping soundly. The colors inside her head steadily mixing and separating. Calm despite the impending doom. I wished I could slip inside, swim amongst the beautiful, and be as serene as she was. Understand on a molecular level what the colors created when they mixed. To know them and love them deeply. I wanted more time with her.

I grabbed her head and began gulping the colors. My body filled and became light, like there was finally space between my joints. The knots in my back unfurled. My shoulders relaxed. My mind was like a clear blue sky, so open and vast, only existing because of the light of the sun. The hexagons around us seemed to slow, though I could feel in my stomach that we were still spinning. I drank and drank, but her head never emptied.

My body reached a state of tranquil equilibrium. Full but not stuffed. Loose but not ungrounded. I sat back, relieved and content.

The hexagons had halted and were now hovering in a gentle counter-spin. Everything was steady. The colors swirled inside my head. My other self lifted, woke, screwed her skull back on, stood up, and walked away.

“Wait,” I exclaimed and followed her. “Where are you going?”

Nowhere. Her voice, my voice, for once, the only thing in my head.

“Don’t go,” I pleaded.

She turned around but didn’t say anything. Her face was still forlorn. Spit still running down her chin, tongue huge and useless, but in her eyes I felt her space.

She spoke clearly. She wasn’t going anywhere. She would walk this path with me, keep me close, as I kept her. She sat down on the edge and dangled her feet. I did the same. We took in the blackness side by side.

Pretty, isn’t it?

Beautiful.