Swallow

Last night I drove dangerously on the freeway.

I veered from the inside lane across broken white lines toward the exit which led to that place.

My car windows were open and the wind danced in my hair like an escapee under laser lights, kicking and shaking and swinging arms around in big full circles of don’t touch me and who cares. Rigid movement and sudden snaps of maniacal thoughts flicked off the ends of my hair and landed in my ears, dropping down each canal, dripping into the centre of me and into my heart where they met with the thump thump thump of everything that matters, rolling into a ball and sitting there, vibrating until the impulses faded away behind the heavy beating of my heart.

I wanted to spit it all out.

I kept driving and lent further to the right and hung my head out of the window whilst allowing the strong breeze to blow the leftovers from my hair.

I sucked in and scraped the insides of my throat and chest with my own breath and I collected it all amongst the wash of bile and saliva. I allowed the sound to travel through my throat, gargling on it with the rough dragging hacking cough of a smoker. It bounced up and down inside of my throat and settled at the back of my mouth, dangling off my tonsils. Manipulating it with another grating sound toward my tongue I spat it all out of my mouth and it flew back beside the car and splattered against the rear window.

At that place, beside the road where the trucks usually stop and the bins are always over flowing, I stepped out of my car and walked toward a tree. I sat down and lit a cigarette and hoped that the last of it all would be burnt away.

As the traffic raced by on the freeway, I sat in the dirt, in front of my car and I watched the phlegm dribble down the rear window.

Some thoughts are hard to escape.

© ryan

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Tags:

cough, impulse, phlegm, pj, ryan, thoughts and wind