"He believed that he was eating entire cities and vomited from the taste of concrete in his mouth."

Drape-stained orange light thrown against the far wall illuminates cracks in the spackle.

My eyes close, head lost in sheets uncomfortably soft against my skin.

A chord is strummed, it is in tune; harmonious.

I feel sorry that you are leaving.

Childhood

A dull pain at the back of the neck drew his focus away from the task at hand. Lines carefully rehearsed began to degenerate into slurred and stuttered incoherence; they lurched and careened out of his mouth and onto the table where they lay flailing, occupying time for longer than they ought, exposed and in the open, scrutinized. She smelled of lilac. He remembered the tree in the front yard, petals drifting towards the asphalt, a splinter between two fingers.  Days without obligation. And then the pain.

He began to sweat. Fear gripped him. Her lips had pulled back in a cruel smile and exposed rows of pristine teeth. The pain grew.

Friendship

This had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he wasn't so sure. The streetlight threw his shadow out across the intersection at an acute angle, its head reaching nearly home. He stood awkwardly in front of the house, his body listing slightly to one side. He could hear laughter come through the windows cracked slightly in the warmth of the pre-spring night. He lifted his foot, then placed it down again. Turning away, he wiped the snot from his nose onto the sleeve of his sweater and, disgusted with himself, walked back down the street to his home. 

Later, after he had jerked off into a sock, he fell asleep still clothed. He dreamt that his teeth were falling out. In the dream, he tried to hold the teeth in his hands, but there were too many, and they slipped through his fingers one by one.