The screen is forty feet tall

The screen is forty feet tall

and everyone is holding their breath

while the hero looks into the camera.

I’m the only one making a sound.

I press the damp, crumpled tissue

into the center of my palm,

trying to swallow the jagged heat

before it breaks out into the air.

It’s a dry, rattling kind of labor,

a rhythmic scraping in the lungs

that doesn't care about the plot

or the people in row G.

My throat is a raw, red tunnel

and the medicine has long since quit.

I’m just a body in a dark room,

waiting for the next fit.