Sept 14, 2022
fever dream
Tammy Breitweiser
With my coffee, I take the yellow pill from the plastic bag in an old purse. No markings indicate its origins. Memory is fiction that we believe to be truth, which is only perception anyway. The story I would have remembered would have been slanted anyway.
The yellow pill works magic, and I feel contained in a bubble with feathers on my skin as I drive to the store, to the library, and to lunch. I am whisked through my day with sun rays and calm. I feel drunk and remember I didn't have any alcohol; only the yellow pill.
As I walk in the park I wonder: Can I forget who I am in order to rediscover myself for the first time again?
I am one nesting doll with two halves. One side consumption and the other docility. A past life comes to the surface amongst the waves of practicality.
I’m hungry, and I take a bite of my arm. I chew and consume myself one bite at a time. Do you want some? I hold my arm out to a man sitting next to me on the park bench. He bites down but only bruises me with a circle of indented teeth.
“You’re doing it wrong, “ I say and finish off what is left of me.
The spicy and the sweet.
The bitter and the sour.
The light and the dark.
A new nesting doll is regurgitated, laying on the grass and the path, all curled up with chunks of shiny spit and bile sticking to my skin.
I am the first and the last.
Tammy L. Breitweiser is the conjurer of everyday magic with concise poems and stories. Currently, her hobbies include moving residences, teaching writing, and making friends with cats. Her fiction has been published in Gone Lawn, Cabinets of Heed, Spelk, Five on the Fifth, Clover and White, Fiction Berlin Kitchen, and others. She is the lead moderator for the Sarah Selecky Centered community. You can connect with Tammy through IG @writertammy.