The Apple

It starts.

The rhythmic snap, a bright, wet sound.

Like someone peeling skin

off an apple, inside my head.

He chews, slow, deliberate,

a public act of mastication.

Through my noise-canceling headphones,

I still hear it. The crisp

rupture, the moist grind.

I watch his jaw, a small machine,

ticking, then the swallow,

a quick bob in his throat.

A glisten at the lip.

It fills the air, this small violence.

A world reduced to pulp.