You’re asleep two inches to my left.
Two of the longest inches
I’ve ever measured with these eyes—
eyes that will not close or rest or fixate
on anything but those
inches that
never used to exist.

And when I finally do
look around the room,
suddenly all of the artwork on the walls
doesn’t seem like mine anymore
and my skin feels foreign—
so foreign.

It’s like I have all of the parts
to keep myself working,
but my instructions are all in Swedish,
and even these detailed diagrams can’t
get me there again.
Figure A looks nothing like it used to
and all of the screws are stripped,
useless, dooming any effort
to keep things together.

I want out of this room—
and what I feel writhing in my ribcage
is no longer something that’s keeping me alive
but this slimy Chest Burster
of conflicted alien emotion
that’s promising to break through my breast
at any moment
if I don’t close my eyes.

Guts…
guts everywhere…
and it won’t be pretty.

But I can’t settle my mind, and
I don’t want to wonder
what you could possibly be dreaming
like I did those thousand times before,
as my cracks continued
to silently branch off in new directions.

So I let him.
I keep my eyes open and I let him
burst through the surface.
The last thing I see is my own matter
flung onto that artwork on my walls,
and my last two hopes are
that my parents know
how much I love them
and that this hungry alien baby
bites off the only thing
you have going for you
with his
otherworldly
sharp set
of teeth.