Chocolate Milk

I buy single cartons of chocolate milk. They come with a straw. The ladies behind the counter think I’m nice. I give perfect change. Sometimes they help. My indecisive fingers reaching for pennies. Fifty-two pence. Monday. Wednesday. Friday. When I buy three. For the weekend. Half a carton of chocolate milk sits open in the fridge. Awaiting its fate. A sweet conduit for what I need. The straw lasts two days. Maybe three. Depending on the blood. Sometimes I shake at the counter. Like the milk not properly stirred. I think they can see me in the afternoon. When I am not nice. When I lie on the floor and the beige ceiling falls to my toes. A pump of breath. My hypnic jerk. Raises the concrete off me. Like the listening woman 423 days ago whose eyes rolled in her head. Like she was hitting the wall of a Q-wave. Bouncing back. My walls don’t give me the option of bouncing back. A penny rolling round the glass edges of a jar. A folly he said. To try and pull it out. Me. I don’t tell them. Never tell them. About the book. The book that’s so important I can’t begin to read it. If I begin to read I will find the last words. A moth crushed in my fingers. Sprinkled in the milk. Leaves no trace at all.