Memory Tonic

He takes a tea-spoonful of reddish tonic. Dried stubbles sprout within his old skull. Memories froth in the vast past… His mom applies bitter neem paste on her nipples like the inaugural ceremony of denial on the earth. Silhouette of a secret sorrow grows against a wall. Tear oozes out of the past. Memories froth… A baby sucking within the frozen arms, fumes of mystery from smoldering frankincense near grandma’s stiff body, remnants of a rape, infiltrating fingers of a homosexual, distilled pain from privation… He loses his sleep. Even the sweetest memory lands on loss. Peace is in the oblivion. First published in The Literary Hatchet