by Virginia Eggerton

You have become so heavy that walking is stooping, carrying alveoli fat like grapes. They rattle around, mucus-thick. 

Some insects are so light they spend their lives on the surface of a single lake. An algae bloom spreads from one spot to skin the whole, sun swallowed by the all-consuming rash. 

You have become so heavy that you can only stoop, starved of light. Like a honeybee too weak to fly: fed simple syrup, a facsimile of nectar.

A low humming means air moving. It means wings beating. It means you’re still alive.

Virginia Eggerton is a getting her MFA at George Mason University. She writes short (and very short) fiction, some of which has been published by Wigleaf, Cease Cows, MoonPark Review, and Honey and Lime Lit. You can find her on twitter @eggertonhere