Taste buds.

It tastes like chrome from the barrel of the gun resting on your tongue tickling your uvula

It tastes like a million microorganisms making a home in every exposed cavity while you claw your way out of the dirt at your funeral

It tastes like salt and grime from the open ocean beneath your bucket you stand in filled with cement the sun above the surface its shimmer teasing you with its blurred smile

It tastes like another humans saliva when your last breath is too late, and they couldn't save you

It tastes like the raindrops falling in your mouth when you took that leap and hit the roof of the parked car slowly inches away from death

It tastes like metallic rolling out of your open mouth the result of her fists again