He Was Gone

                When he finally did punch me in my face, at first, it felt good. I can’t explain it exactly, but I want to try. It was a hot burn, on my nose and my mouth, almost like an itch that’s gonna feel so good to scratch. There was this warmth from the blood coming out of my inner lip, where my teeth had broken flesh and a sort of numbness, a throbbing, like I could feel my heart beating all over my face.

                But then it didn’t feel good anymore and suddenly my eyes went from squeezed shut to being open too wide. Way too wide. And the blood, it was still warm, but it was too much in my mouth, the flavor of it and the thickness of it running down my throat, I tried to stop swallowing and I made a weird, loud hiccup sound. That sound broke the sound of my beating heart, broke the throbbing, broke what must have been a shocked silence in the room. Then I choked on my blood and now spit and blood were all over my chin and chest and now it was an annoying itch, like wet socks on a hike. Then, I took in a sharp breath and must have swallowed a piece of my tooth, so I choked again and this time I retched and now my mouth tasted like blood and puke. The annoying itch was getting worse and I could feel snot on my upper lip, instinctively I reached up to wipe it with the back of my hand and it hurt so bad and I could feel pieces of my tooth on my face and on my tongue, like candies.  I sucked in another breath and cried out because I felt the raw pain of my exposed nerves in my mouth. One tooth was kind of hanging down and I pushed it back into its socket. With my tongue, I touched it, over and over again. It still felt loose, but it wasn’t falling out anymore.

                I reached out for someone or something, but only felt emptiness. Somehow, I was now sitting down and I was crying and it hurt to cry, hurt to breathe, hurt to feel this empty. Finally, I looked up to see him, but he was gone.