How It Feels to Be 5 Gum

 

I am hollow and brittle and ready to crumble

If I curl up too much, I’ll collapse in on myself

I am aimless

I am nigh-formless

I am a beam of light flying from a star,

    on a perfect trajectory to never hit anything

        along my path

I feel as though I cannot breathe

    even though I am

My legs are numb

I feel as though someone has ripped out my left lung

I feel as though someone has replaced my stomach’s butterflies

    with moths

My hands ought to be translucent

My lungs are laden with the inexpressible

I am the stubborn eyebrow-hair finally being plucked out

I am a moonbeam missing the Earth and flying away

I am a comet that will burn up before impact

I am an eraser’s shavings being swept from a desk

I won’t last too much longer

Untitled (unfinished)

 

    There are few moments as somber as when you leave your friends and drive home after a party or get-together or the like. That moment when you part ways and are enveloped with a feeling of profound loneliness that stews in the isolation of your vehicle all the way back home.

    If you’ve experienced this before, you know what pain feels like. You know how it feels to wander the desert alone for eternity all in the span of your commute. The warm summer evening or night air that threatens to choke the life out of you if you let it. You feel as though you could give up your being to the universe and float down the river for a while, filling your lungs with the cool waters.

    In that moment, you can see how each of your friends will disappear from your life. There that one goes, off to pursue some pipe dream. Oh, another has started a career in construction. Look! That one has taken off Northward for the chance at a better life.

    The food you ate is no longer agreeing with your stomach as you reach the halfway point of your trip home. It was perfectly good, but your stomach has decided to revolt due to the negative emotion piling up in your system.