"the strangest thing is, you still have to brush your teeth"

that feeling in your body when it tries to protect you from the full weight of what you've just heard

cold in your chest

tight

vice-like

and everything becomes just a little more irreal

and all at once time becomes both more and less important

insignificant but all you'll ever have

all you've ever had

(how much of it wasted?)

and you place your head in your hands and bite back all of the words that are fighting behind your teeth

and you feel restless and violent inside

so you get up

and you go outside and stare into the middle distance

and the kids in the next yard are laughing

and someone is playing top 40 radio on a stereo

and someone is mowing their lawn

(your grass is getting quite long too, will have to cut it soon)

and the sky is not the bluest blue but still blue

and when you read all those poems and stories about how strange it is to have the world keep spinning around you

as if the weight of it had not just crashed down on your head

as if you could just fill your time like you always did with the knowledge of this living inside of you

as if the very fabric of reality had not just shifted catastrophically

now you understand what they meant