Unforgiving wall braces my back.
Just seconds before the door slammed,
I truly thought I'd appreciate quiet.
But now the empty air constructs barriers so claustrophobic that my limbs won't twitch -
Forget functioning.
A single carpenter ant skitters across the floor before my grass-stained mesh sneaker, as if called from the slimy couch shadows on cue.
And then another.
(Note: The poet is self-conscious enough that he needs to say : "The following should be horrible writing, but after hours of thought I couldn't think of a better phrase to express our ill-fated protagonists' malice towards these insectile invaders than": )
I hate them.
I told (The One Who Escapes) on Monday that I'd handle the infestation.
Every time I saw an ant crawling after that-
I felt a swarm of mandibles tear at my brain tissue
and a burning in my intestines courtesy of burrowing.
A feeling that's amplified ad nauseam by current cacophonous quiet.
(The One Who Escapes) bursts back through the door, gasping for breath and blabbering with darting eyes about:
"They're coming right now!
We have to go!"
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