Empty Street / Jenny / Loss Of Senses

Jenny wanders down an empty street
The concrete ribbon, blue in the night.
The foliage around her,
Swarming with creepy crawlies,
Alive with clicking and buzzing and chirps.
Jenny walks solemnly through the noise.
Then a black bird flies down from the trees
And tells her she won’t need to hear anymore
And pokes holes in her eardrums
With his long, sharp beak.
The symphony of the critters dies.

Jenny keeps walking, cutting through the night.
Suddenly, a shock of white ahead.
A shock of white, beating, illuminated by an endless beam of light
Jenny picks up the mass, a weight wrapped in tissue.
She pulls at the paper
It tears as she removes it in sticky strands
When the white is gone
A human heart beats in Jenny’s cupped hands
It’s still warm, still pulsating, though slightly decayed
As human hearts cannot live outside the body.
Jenny pockets the heart and keeps walking.
Only steps later, the same black bird flies out of his tree
The bird cocks his small, black head
Blinks,
And pokes out her eyes
With his long, sharp beak.
The beam of light sputters and dies.

Jenny perseveres through the darkness,
Inching forward, taking hesitant steps,
Gliding her foot forward before she moves,
So as to not to trip and fall.
An obstacle goes unnoticed
And Jenny takes her uneasy step right into the hurdle
She tumbles through the night and onto the concrete
She lands on her chin
And her jaw is forced shut,
With her soft, spongy tongue in between.
The blood gushes into her mouth
The taste is metallic, but sweet.
The black bird flutters from his tree
Jenny feels his breeze, the brush of feathers against her skin
She can’t hear him, but she knows
Her clips out her tongue,
With his long, sharp beak
The taste of blood dies.

Jenny feels her way down the lonely street
On her hands and knees,
She runs her hand over every inch she travels.
The concrete changes to grease
She’s sliding her hand over and oil slick
She makes buttery figure eights
And lets her fingers play on the smooth, black puddle.
She raises her hand to her nose and inhales,
Pulling the powerful smell of gasoline through her nostrils
Her sensors tingle
She lets the breath out through her mouth
The black bird falls out of his tree in a downward swoop
For a few moments, Jenny stews in the silence
Then the bird clips off her nose,
With his long, sharp beak.
The odor of gasoline dies.

Jenny continues along the dark, silent street.
Her steps traveling through her like small, static shocks
She drags her fingers along the concrete
Feeling the bumps and unevenness in the road
Reading her way though the night.
Jenny passes gently through a spider’s web
That a black widow had spun from tree to tree.
A glistening tapestry,
Draped across the street.
Jenny feels the brush of eight legs at the tip of her finger
She feels the hasty climb up her arm and over her shoulder
She squirms from the tickle
She feels a gust of wind, she feels the bird on her shoulder
She reaches up to stroke him,
His chest inflates and the vibrations of his purring
Make her fingers tremble.
Her lifts off of her shoulder and flaps his large, regal wings.
Jenny goes numb.
The beating in her pocket dies,
The sting of the scrape on her chin dies,
And Jenny, herself, dies.  .