Author name: Hayden Veil

 I reach into the box and touch it, briefly,
 the softness of a tennis ball, over-used
 and squidgy, but covered in lumps, like a
 disease evenly spread around its surface.

 I stick my nose in and smell it, the raw
 pungent stench of a rotten corpse on its
 sixth week uncovered in the tropical
 landscape of death.

 I listen but hear nothing, no something,
 like a sigh from a tired mother's lips
 waiting for a husband’s return under
 the brightest of moons.

 I stick my tongue in and lick the lumped
 facade. The salt fuses with my tongue and
 in my veins a tingle from the hydrochloric
 acid burning.

 I extract it and dread floods my veins, fills my
 lungs, and whistles in my ears as its thoughts
 emanates, no reverberates inside my head.
 It hates me, it loathes me, it wants me -- gone.

 I can no longer hold it, it falls to the floor,
 bounces briefly on the unpolished planks
 before it slowly spins towards the darkest
 corner of the room.

 I am left standing, my bewilderment –

 gone.