As She Climbed Across the Table

My inner chemistry had been hijacked by a mad scientist, who poured the fizzy, volatile contents of my heart from a test tube marked SOBER REALITY into another labeled SUNNY DELUSION, and back again, faster and faster, until the floor of my life was slick with spillage.

My heart, to put it more simply, got nostalgic for the present. Always a bad sign.

My heart and the elevator, a plummet inside a plummet.

I'm learning to hate the sound of my own voice.

The speaker was stringy and angular, his blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, his plaid workman's shirtsleeves rolled up around his pale biceps. Journalism major, I guessed.

I am relaxed. It's just buried under layers of incredulity and panic. But underneath those I'm very relaxed.

This kiss would be with me, invisible badge or scar, when I went back to the apartment.