Now Hands That Do Dishes...

…it’s an ulcer on the backside of my left eyeball, this biting cancerous rage that has my hands shaking, eyes wide and my frown stiffening and hurting and creasing my forehead, this offence, this insult, these dishes that clank and bash and screech, this water that thrashes about my waistline, this soapy quagmire that wrinkles my skin and makes everything feel like sand, this steam, this grease, this back pain, this smell of laboratory autumn apple blossoms, this clumsy knocking of an upturned sudsy glass, this leftover teaspoon. I hurtle bricks in my head towards imaginary people and walls. I scratch gouges in my terrible ears, I heave vomit into the sink and punch the surface with my bloodied fists, spraying disgust and rage over the previously gleaming tiles. I head butt the wine glasses, I shower myself in shards of hatred. I howl and gurgle and hiss, words so dreadful they fear to leave my throat, they loiter in my mouth and make unseemly animal noises and peer about my teeth for a safe route out, out and out. They rush together and it’s a frightful cry of abject misery and fear. I lean back and breathe and my shoulder hurts, this back pain, I’m having a heart attack. Hardened ketchup. Displaced sticky head hair and old mayonnaise and a slump of resignation.