the words catch on my tongue
like they're bound with saran wrap
I can feel them
clawing for escape
I bite and bite and bite on the speckled pink flesh
but I cannot free these pathetic
slaves in my museum of emptiness
chained to my esophogus
by long, thin, elastic threads
my teeth are too dull
to rip through
despite my constant gnawing

like that rat I once saw
in a memory so faint
I may have imagined it