For weeks I’ve been having the same longing. I want to swallow pennies. I can’t recall when it started but now, whenever I get change I pause a moment and look at the pennies. I examine Lincoln’s suit, his bowtie, the curl in his hair, how perfectly coifed he is and I imagine how he would feel sliding down my esophagus. I see myself placing him on my tongue, the cool metal a relief from this heat and then the sting of an electrical charge, the zinc reacting with my fillings. I have a number of fillings and have had three root canals in the past year alone. Part of this is genetic. Weak teeth. The other part is reflux. Acids wash up my esophagus from my stomach and eat at the back of me teeth as I sleep. They burn holes in my throat as I dream of buying a roll of pennies and swallowing them one at a time.

I think of starting with dimes. After all, they’re smaller. But for some reason when I hold a dime in my hand it doesn’t have the same appeal. There’s something about Lincoln that calls to me. Perhaps it’s the word next to his silhouette – Liberty. The penny makes me think that if I fill my stomach with Lincoln then my life will be okay.

Every penny I see on the street I have to pick up. “Maybe this one,” I say. “Maybe this will be the one I swallow.” I know I’m meant to. Lincoln is meant to be inside me. Maybe he’s the cure for my constantly sour stomach. I’ve swallowed everything else – the green Tagament, the holy trinity of P pills, Pravacid, Pepcid AC and Prilosec, Maalox, and the little purple pill that’s supposed to cure all and somehow heal both the volcanic eruptions in my stomach and the internal burns they’ve caused as the lava flows into my mouth each night. The only pill that does work is Ambien because it at least lets me sleep as my stomach’s Krakatoa rages.


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