I
I can't see the mosquito, but I feel it; hiding in-between hair follicles rooted carefully, in twin distances, baked into my arms.
It 𝑖𝑠 here somewhere.
There it goes, under my skin. Is it really here to drink blood? Maybe I'll ask; if only I could see where it was. I suppose I'll just have to wait until I feel something shift.
The white walls are daubed with sticky light again. It cracks through the window every morning and cowps into corners around my bed. And every morning I attempt to break our close contiguity, if only to be free of the stench. I think it’s just trying to teach me to tuck the sheets back in, but that’s probably why I hate it so much.
Then the day walks in,
And walks out;
And the mosquito’s still there, somewhere. Though I guess I don’t know if the blood still is. But I can still feel, I think; I’m feeling this coffee on my tongue, aren’t I? Like it’s feeling my blood just now, as I drift to the undone bed that the night’s been lying awake on. I let myself go, and fall into its place,
Then the day walks in again.
II
Tomorrow’s a bizarre word; abnormal, peculiar. Unfamiliarity threads through its torso, just as it does mine.
The mosquito is laying there, where the night was, and me after. It’s dead now; all that blood did it no good I suppose, though I never asked if that was what it was here for.
I saw it yesterday, I think, or just another tomorrow; sleeping? on my stomach. I couldn’t feel it this time, I only watched as it drank. It might have seen me, though I doubt it did; it was too busy sipping the truth from my belly.
Cemented lips grew over it pretty soon, sooner than I was expecting. Night fell asleep for the first time in quite a while, above it. And so did I.
Then the day walked in again.