the slow cooking frog sneezes

nothing amiss, ambient flickers of a cozy eyes apparently dulled with all the minute errors like pollen finer than dust sprinkled on a toad's porous skin oozing out all that umami broth into soup thickening, scowling reflections of an adjacent frog whose grin begins to fade when movements become restricted while the onion in the air bleeds out the tear ducts unable to withstand that pungent hit - nostrils widen, inhaling deeply the reddish eyes finding the steamy air quite stale, with a neighbor whose glare takes on a sourish demeanor of discomfort turning to alarm when the veins bulge, the muscles relax while the tics on the eyelid shutter like an infinite loop without a break statement. sensing doom, feeling a drop in the heart: a croak or a scream? the skin has become elongated from too much water, stretched thin, with flesh loosening into steam but the cook is not around to stir the pot. he has gone out into the garden in search of some gingery spice, some chili to add to this concoction of toadstools and is hopping on one foot, then the other, impatient to have that dish come out perfect - a vibration, a noise, a shudder when a frog catches a cold, tries to be polite to the misty toad shredding magic shrooms into livid water unable to churn. the coagulation has begun with an impatient chef setting the heat a little too high quite intense. then the forgotten is remembered, the bleary eyes from too much crying goes still, like death. no breath comes about with magic in the air. just a silent wish from a neighboring fellow witnessing a dystopian nightmare stretching like the skin taut. a heart presses thickly into the skull, with sordid croaks lamenting this plunge into a pool of sales and tactics from a kind face peering into that sky: gentle hands prying life out of the stony hedges to join into a bath to cleanse, to refill, to supplant all those missing years drained out - nothing amiss, just another day in the garden of a gardener whose warmth stretched like the stink now apparent in the air. like death awakening from fertile soil, the sprouts reach towards the throat. strangle. one lousy toad whose appearance is quickly fading when flesh meets heart. unable to turn away to how things used to be under a stony hedge, the ultimate deceit came all along from that cozy eyes taken in by appearance, flesh residing like skin hung loosely on rods used to dry out clothing to be worn another day when the current fashion is to make red. red spicy chili stirring in a pot unable to flow with umami trapped between two glassy eye still beseeching a twist of time. time to jump out of the pot as a sneeze shook the fundamentals, the pivot cracked, an angry man wails with prized soup landing solidly on foot still hopping about in a dance, a dance a frog understands the moment feet lands on ground. and a glaring sky in the face of one memory relived, buried, come to live. an awakening like life shuffling her feet, unable to suppress the stark discrepancy of an image, first impression without context. and context was all that hot soup spilled with magic shrooms not able to save.