In the waiting room of a suburban doctor’s office, the legs of puffy chairs are buried deep in walll to wall carpets. Yellowed posters compare women’s asses to more perfected chins. he patient wonders will my face ever be french will I ever learn to smell nice or hold my lips in a way the posters are yellowed, faded as if from the 70s but perhaps the 90s looking like the seventies and french women wanting to look more french like in the 60′s. a streetlamp reflects through the slats. The streets are perhaps empty in the suburbs.

The doctor is French and his body with no presence matches the furniture, colorless, heavy. They have a too brief conversation about the scratch in her throat which is the cause of the streets cold wetness and dry heat in the apartments. She knows this but would rather be sick than face her fears. He says he is “classique” when she asks about the rocks behind the vitrine pink and purple crystals in the hundreds and he does not believe in homeopathic medicine.

What is this if not magic light to lift the skin of a neck or to relieve the smile of its creases or eyes of their tears?

Under my left breast is buried my heart. I might die but so will we all so I might be a different human tomorrow after my left breast is gone and I might have learned to bare my bruised heart. I might be dead, but so might we all. we welcome when we really mean to say no to death

a kind of way of saying no is a welcome.

it is my birthday party

shall I die today

shall I die