I am falling up. I am falling down. I am falling all around. People turn their faces to the sky and lift their chins to watch. Everywhere you look, I’m falling and if it weren’t for me falling all over the place, it would be a beautiful day. But I hit the ground crashing like someone spilled a big bucket of something cold and wet at your feet and I am the sound of a heart exploding all over again. People turn their faces to the sky and lift their chins to look away. I don’t blame them for it. After a while, I start to fall up all over again and there’s nothing that you or I can or anybody else can do about it but just stand here and watch. Things are looking up.

You are sitting back in my chair and we are telling each other things. It’s nice. Every so often we let the conversation break in such a way that everything around us becomes clear, and it’s beautiful. The sound of your blood rushing through your veins stirs me and at times like these I can’t remember if I’ll ever see you again. In fact, it never crosses my mind once. Then one of us resumes talking and I begin to get angry with myself for letting it happen. Of course I don’t. But for the next time we see each other, I wonder if we’ll ever let the conversation break like that again.

Today I told the doctor that my eyeballs were having a falling out. I think that my eyeballs are having a falling out, I said. She looked at me in a funny way and went back to writing on that silly clipboard of hers. In a pleasant voice I suggested that she have me referred out to a specialist who could handle these kinds of things. An eye specialist or something, I said. She gave me another funny look. I told her that she ought to be seen by one too.

I just yawned so hard that my whole jaw nearly fell off and bounced from my lap and onto the floor where it would have laid trembling and twitching. I’d probably be trembling and twitching too. After a few minutes, you would have walked in and seen it there, my tongue flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water, gasping for air, slowly drowning in a shallow pool of its own saliva. Of course we’d both be speechless, I for obvious reasons, and we’d remain there motionless for a little longer, overcome by the wet slapping sound of my tongue thwacking the floor and watching the dying convulsions of my jaw until one of us gathered the nerve to speak up.

Someone else would hear all the commotion you were making and they’d burst into the room in a cloud of dust and broken words only to turn away in disgust with both hands clasped tightly over their mouth, as if their jaw were about to fall off.

I’d get up calmly and wait for my jaw to go slack before picking it up off the ground. Grasping it firmly by the chin I’d drop it into a plastic Ziploc baggie, already half full with a handful of Cheerios and granola crumbs-and I’d pack it all up and head off for class. I’d arrive with a big wet sloppy smile plastered all over my face but no one would get it, not one single person. It'd make no difference to me. And I probably wouldn't be able to stop laughing anyways.