In July

I pierced my own side.  And now I can only watch as it flows out furiously into pail after pail.

"Oh, but you shouldn't have put the hole there." she says.  "It shouldn't hurt so much.  You must be doing something wrong."  She smiles at me from her perch on the cushioned sofa and reaches down to pet the dog.

"If it wants to be told, the story will find a way.  It won't let you rest."

I'm not resting now!  I want to rage and throw coffee mugs at her as I rush to replace another bucket, full of gristle and horns and little tumors with sand burr hands.

I am leaking on the sidewalk.  I am staining your couch.  Making barnyard puddles all over the floor while my cat calls the paramedics.  The bathtub teems with swimming blood-guppies.  With warring Viking ships and 1980s child molesters.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." I say.  She nods smugly and turns her head as I spit shark teeth one right after the other into my tea.