Your breath secured the words in my throat; your mouth, against mine, the seal. Knotting the promise with your rubbery lips should have helped me breathe easier, but with every inhalation its falsity swelled. Even as I slept, I must have expected your assurance to burst--to expel letters across the backs of my teeth that would find meaning with my pasty tongue. So I swallowed the balloon inflated with your professions of innocence: gulped down the words that my instinct would release in hot, angry exhalations. Only when I'm on the floor, struggling to interpret my guttural sounds, do I notice you. Leaning upright in bed you wait for your confession to find my stomach's acid, before reaching for the string escaping my lips. With one tug the balloon's shriveled remains are released; yet, the persuasive words inside aren't yet fully deflated. I know, because I am still suffocating.
***
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