equation

Full—full—full for the first time in forty days and forty nights, but there's something wrong, like a hitch in the equation. I'm basking in the lunar glow, a lunatic high, my footsteps light and (almost) easy along Fifth Avenue as my breath escapes in delicate steam-wisps, like ghosts, like the thin fragrant haze of ritual incense. It's her I smell, the (elder) sister, Doll with a long breathy vowel, I'm perfumed in her like a dog rolling in sweat and smoke and crushed bittersweet weeds and (dahl)ias.

And I'm on the verge of dancing—but my guts are inexplicably clutched by an alien feeling outside of me and inside of me, like a golden thread through my center (connecting me to what?) being pulled taut and tugging, drawing hard.

I have to stop, my fingers pressed to my mouth (cold as snow, hot as blood), to keep from vomiting.

And I don't know why. I don't know why.