smear

Soph Bonde/Argot Publications Inc.

i’m an apparition moving into the thin triangle of a red light on wet streets, reflections, us both, blinking through a Saturday night bar crowd. I spend hardly a second where I’m supposed to be. what is this shape I make when I hold my head in my hands coiled into a chute of a single stall-black walls, black ceiling, bare light catching on the silver graffiti, the scratched and peeling stickers cover the mirror. 

what fits in this space

I do not fit in this space

if I could pull these welling full at my gorge sour thoughts from my mind? my whole self I am so full of thought I could not be action; 

sinking further into my own embrace I daydream 

I have been sitting jaws locked tight in these moments

on that next breath out, next harsh exhale

that grind of my teeth harshens 

pushing my molars into my incisors

grinding down 

till the soft flesh and raw root catch and I 

am still here 

in this stall 

my body a shivering S, fingers smearing my cheeks

my mouth 

orange red blood, teeth against my chest

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Soph Bonde is President and Publisher at Argot Magazine. She is a professional photographer in Washington DC and awkward about it. She has been described as an 'administrative machine.'