Diluted

Blinded in the supermarket, walking dumbly through the
aisles, packing my cart high with sustenance; steaks,
breads, cakes, hoping to put some flesh back on your
whittled frame, hoping your sudden plunge in weight is
nothing serious, not the unspoken “C,” certainly, hoping
the tests come back negative, praying your three-times-a-day
loose bowels are due to some strange kind of flu, thinking
I can entice your appetite again with all this food as I
pile the cart higher and higher until it is spilling over
with hope, adding melons to the mess, fingers tightening
around their wholeness, the sweet perfection within as I
watch children playing, running from their mother's shouts,
using cucumbers as pistols, their innocent ignorant bliss
a knife in my ribs, twisting every so subtly.  I advance,
numbly, to the check-out line, seeing people laugh amongst
themselves, bantering about recipes, grandchildren and
holiday gifts. I am a foreigner; amiss, not understanding
their words and grins, and I'm fighting like hell not to
break like glass, just shatter at their feet when the clerk
hands me the receipt and says “Have a good Christmas,” and
I bite my tongue to keep the tears from coming, biting down
hard until I can taste the blood, and only when I can escape
to the hooded density of my car do I let it go, the tears
running new and hot, diluting the blood, the salt making it
bearable, making it taste just a little bit better.



*Cynthia Ruth Lewis currently lives in Sacramento, Ca.  Her work has appeared in Nerve Cowboy, Canopic Jar, My Favorite Bullet, and others.

Diluted has previously appeared in Underground Voices