Plate

 Imagine flying above the world you know and the life you lead, to look down on everyone you've ever met. Which of the faces are you searching for?  Imagine the world around you crashing, heat from the fumes of the noisy traffic drilling slowly into your skin but you are not there, you are lost deep inside your mind and your thoughts.  I am there, not in another day but a day that was. A moment that passed. I wake myself up, but I'm still there, just this time I can feel the gnaw of pain and the sawing disappointment. Wind knocks out of my stomach every punch that is delivered, and it hurts, yes, but why?  I thought you loved me. I thought you cared. And I thought we were friends.  "I thought," she says, "this would never end."  Zap, I'm up, another week in the hospital room. He sits stoic, explaining the science to his scared but not confused personhood. Catching onto the letters of words thrown out by the doctors, swiftly googling their meaning. Wires