carriage 4 of the southwestern rail

hungry when you get home because you felt uglier as the sun set and the humidity rose. your bullhead peaked over the tear duct. and i could cry because my body does not look as it does in my periphery. refractions in a fleshy eye. humors bending light in aqua. there is great sadness to this. great hunger to look the way of desire. great sorrow in confronting the fact that you too are comprised of a face and then some like the people sitting across from you on the train. you go to bed because you feel ugly and you take a bath because you miss the sea. your eyes are clouded by afterimages of your body’s evolution. multi-lid blinking, projections, desert mirage. starving for your dream body. refractions on the floor of the pool, ripped apart and stitched back together in the waves. you kissed a boy once and never looked at his eyes the same. you popped a water blister in the bath and thought you were submitting to swelter. there is ritual to your life. chase the rabbit behind the eyelids, follow the sun’s arc, avoid yourself in the mirror. repeat. chase the rabbit, follow the sun, avoid yourself. repeat. chase, follow, avoid. repeat. slip ice cubes under your tongue to see if you can separate the taste of minerals like a sommelier. you are avoiding the tap. your beastly reflection in the tiles mocks your cleanly routine. the faucet groans at you washing your face. the mirror shelters your beauty elixirs. the drain mocks you. the rabbit went down the drain and you missed it. the photos of when you were pretty grow further and further away in your photo app. it is 1am and you are overwhelmed by hunger, unreciprocated desire, and the numbness behind the knees. it is 1am and you took a sleeping pill with your beauty vitamin and prozac. it is 1am and even the stars are hiding from you outside.