mind killer

the daemon sits on my chest and steals my breath. this was much feared through history, you know. now they call it sleep paralysis and that is not what is happening here. 

the panic is unnameable. maybe i will call it terror. the big black midnight blue-swirling storm ripping away at bits of me, inside to out. inside i cracked at that place. i didn't tell you this morning because self-shards can't talk. can only make my hands shake and blood race. not to the lungs, i guess. daemon's got that covered.

the terror is not real. i know this. you hold my hand but i can't feel it. daemon steals sensation too. are my fingertips terror-blue? is that my voice, calling out?

i recognise nothing. 

ok the pills yes please, i know we said no but my daemon's grown, leapt into the shattering shards of my self with his tongue hanging out between the fangs with excitement. a small boy with a carton of lego. 

listen to the rain on the streets. can you hear it? the puddles, they panic to be sluiced through. then the nothing without cars. in that silence the rain and i, we can be still. raise my ribcage. release the ripples.
but it's a busy street. not enough time for breaths.

i do not think pain would be the worst of dying. so many are afraid of that. terror is the mind-killer. 

paralysis. 

not fight or flight. freeze. will the arteries burst on their own or must i cut them open to fight back?

i want the pills now. i don't care please. i cannot even move enough to cry.

fury

a pregnant

impregnable

need desperation

fury to write

a baby announces itself with its mother's first words, a need to push

inescapable biological physical sensation of the body

a sheen of sweat

that bittersweet bite of an orange

bits of tv shows in the periphery as i scratch

the dog who rolls into my clenching fingers

there is no baby

phantom pregnancy psychogenic headaches

prednisone torodol reglan triptans

more and more and more

and, i need to push

i need to not feel

psychogenic

psychosomatic

psycho, psycho, psycho

even the cat stares me down. his eyes were yellow once. now they singe.

fury a fury

sweaty sheen

there's nothing to write i'm nothing good 

prednisone, is it you who infect my mind?

should we take out those pills

and the white pills

and the white and blue capsules

and the blue triangles

and the smooth white ones, two sizes

so cute, the little one

and the round blue ones, or green, depending

and the yellow capsules rule my day, where are the hours? three times a day. tick tick tick. 

what if we take them all away?

what if the blood orange drips red on my white dress

and under my fingernails?

push, push

keep pushing, phantom, bloody fetus ghost,

welcome to this family, small corpse, little nothing

don't bother that you have no belly button, you'll be safe!

there will be no blood from you!

welcome, do, do come in

while i write nonsensical words

on the typewriter

clack slack tick tock pills time for the pills

with my slick sweat sheen and the blood on my fingers

and your face, your face in my throat pushing out

illusion

dinner is waiting. i can’t eat it. it’s all falling apart. i thought i got all my pieces glued together. glue wasn’t dry, i guess. 

i don’t know what i feel i don’t know how to feel there’s too much to feel there’s too many reasons why. 

i think i thought i was running away from myself again. 

o, that old romantic notion. 

i didn’t make it. i never do. i got here and ran smack into an older version of myself. this is why i never go back. 

am i any better than when i started? how is this not that again? 

i did so much work. 

i did so much work. 

i was becoming a person. i was a person. 

my head’s gone dark again. 

it’s also a tuesday. 

i’m just back where i started. backed into a corner. 

the same corner. i'm done with this corner. i'm bored with this corner. can i face a different wall, please?

something not so covered in blood and snot and sick. 

headache

i write now before the brain descends into chaos. already i can feel it behind my eyes, the hijacking.
rendering me inoperable.

boredom of a kind you don't know. you can't know. 

boredom of want. 
boredom of can't. 
boredom of boredom. 
boredom and pain and confusion and fear. 

how long does the river run? are there beavers here, tangles of trees and mud to block the way, bank to bank? are there dams, to stop it? am i in a tributary a pond a lake?

dams, please stop the rapids. 

stones against my skull. lungs breathe in water. people call to me i can't respond.

leave me alone. face the rapids on my own.   

i am busy. do not make me responsible for your pity.