The Lonely Position of Neutral

On Thursday, I crashed into a parked car.

The dashboard exploded.

I rolled up the windows, took a sharp breath, and forced out the thick frustration through my nostrils. My head feels like crushed rocks. I swim through the air, falling face-first on the floor.

I sit up, staring at the doctor, waiting on a cold hospital bed, praying he'd save the billowing smoke as a façade.

At least wait until Tara arrives to crash into the bad news.

If I have to die, kill me softly with words, leaving a trail of dust at a standstill of lies hanging in the air.

The airbag ballooned into my chest, pushing my guts from within an accidental collision.

I collided with stomach cancer while wearing my seat belt.

Ain't that about a bitch? I laughed.

Bonnie strolled through the door, sipping on a latte with sunglasses resting above her forehead.

"You're late," I said, shifting my body to a sitting position.

"I never loved you," Bonnie said before she knew I left her my estate.

The lonesomeness of neutral cracked my dry skin.

Last week, it was stage two, with a chance of pulling through.

This sickness was all new.

I slammed my eyes shut and sank back into the abyss of the places I feared the most.

I stared at the ceiling as though I awaited a sign from heaven.

Then comes heavy breathing, brushes with death closing in for the win like pins sticking in my ribs.

My breath quickens from within. My eyes stretch their sockets.

"I came to say goodbye," Bonnie said, lacking any emotion I prayed she'd have. "And get the keys to your Jeep. I'm neutral about us; I have been for some time."

"I just want to be alone!" I say.

I shot death and the devil, praying for God to take my soul to heaven and not another place. I'd cursed the devil enough times to be skinned alive in hell.

My final breath feels gone.