The Logic of Longing
There is a parasite made of pure gravity
lodged behind my breastbone.
The room dissolves around it;
the world turns to cold, uninteresting ash.
Nothing exists except the itch under my ribs -
the sickening, urgent demand to align the dark inside my head
with something I cannot reach.
I am pinned flat.
Sweat drips down my neck while my teeth click together,
a quiet, violent vibration in a completely motionless room.
My skin has been peeled back
and the exposed fat and muscle are boiling in open air.
My organs are being crowded out by a single, agonizing form.
It twitches. It drags its rusty edges across my lungs.
I am choking on the air I haven't breathed for hours.
This is the fever of fixation:
a quiet execution where the blade moves a millimeter at a time.
I lie here, a heap of dry, useless clay,
watching the ceiling fan slice the darkness into strips.
My mind is a meat grinder turning on empty air,
screaming for the precise,
elusive click that will let me draw a breath again.
It moves inside me, writhing, resetting my bones incorrectly.
It burns. It tears the wet lining of my stomach.
I cannot move my hand. I cannot turn my head.
I am forced to watch myself rot,
trapped inside the convulsing, invisible machinery of my own skull -
shaking, weeping without tears,
waiting for the agonizing pressure to snap into place
and finally let me go...
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