Everything around me swirled

like ink in the rain

drastically surging waves crashing

against me, stringing what I couldn’t quite grasp

across my entirety

until I lay helpless, inside myself

because I had no idea

how to put your pieces back together

even if it was in my place to do so

even if you let me

I wanted to stitch you back to

someone who was happy

but I kept forgetting

how to understand

the world around me

as a stage and choreography

I knew that I wanted to blurt my next line

but the cue was never given

and all these things

wrapped ropes around me

choking my words

chaining them to my lungs

and I meant to try

but I just don’t

know

how.

*i’m sorry.

my legs are twitching with the need to run

to chase a moment, a year,

a lifetime that’s slipping away.

my hands are numb, fingertips brushing

working on autopilot,

following the logic

of things that need to be done

before anything can happen.

my body,

it’s exploding.

waves crashing inside me

yearning, urging, and tearing

at my stationary being,

at my hollow bones attached to tried muscle

and tired skin.

psychologically imploding

with the need to live

and breathe

and do.

experience.

but i’m trapped in this prison of a cultureless culture

in these shackles of people, zombified,

telling me what i can and can’t be

bound to the ground

by the word no;

darling you can’t,

darling you’re too young,

darling you’re trapped,

darling you can’t leave,

darling, you’re stuck.

and with my lips aflame,

trying to release my need to be,

when i simply can’t be,

not yet.

my body, it’s rotting.

twiddling my thumbs,

until life is allowed to start.

dust swimming in the afternoon sun

from the thump of a leg against sheets

a woken body adjusting itself

among the nest of cotton

and tangles of a lover’s legs

dust freeing itself

from the covers of a long day’s sleep

whisping through the air

blowing from the curtains

ebbing with the rise and fall

of steady breathing

in the afternoon sun

sleeping bodies awakening

the dust all around them

once,
i didn't sleep
for two and a half days.
i counted the hours,
60 of them,
to get through the nights.
i counted the
continually
frightening thoughts,
to get through the days.

and did you know,
after 72 hours
of wakefulness, a person can
count themselves
legally insane?

well i knew i had to sleep before then,
because my already
off-kilter mind
did not need to be
legal.

but i kept myself up
for 60 good hours,
taking little red pills when i felt tired,
until i decided
i'd had enough,
curled up in my bed
and became something
relatively sane
again.