my heart is a gasoline guzzler
running on the fumes of burned out
memories, thoughts, and breaths.
my veins play jump rope with my bursting capillaries
and beneath the seam of every heartbeat
is an arrhythmia that smiles back.
no longer is every intake an oxygen a dutiful task.
rather i, as a sovereign animal
convert the anguish into carbon dioxide
because i don't care for the proton pumps
or the electron chains. i am negatively charged
and hidden inside this bubble is a dark cycle
beseeching for the spotlight.