You can never tell when/if they’re coming
will they reach/snag your sweater
with their mossy claws
and leave your body shaking/rigid in the darkness, and you
*******/choking your own breath.

You might/never see them,
you can(t) always feel their
breath, sticky on your sweating neck/knees
as they stalk with practice/perfection,
keeping you blind/sided.

Perhaps they are circling/behind
but they still he(a)rd your dank mind and
they can taste/fear because you taste it,
acid/tar clinging to the back/tongue
clutching the roof of your mouth
s(l)eeping in(to) your lungs.

Your sense of direction(less)
lost in attempt to hang (on) tattered flesh
to remind your self of time/reality?
to wonder where/when you left you and whether
you’ll ever walk back to your body—

But this, this is yours/your mind/mindless
being surreptitiously shepherded,
invisible to your eyes/your intuition,
which seeks/bares(t) gasps of light.

Hang on to those/sustenance,
gaps in the cloth of your (de)constructed mind
that withers/shreds/hopes again
only to find claws closing closer.
Where’s your reality?

Find it/they’ll get you/they’ll have you
You’ll have you what’s the difference?
When your mind is severed from its guy wires
just as your earthquake saunters from quiver to roar
and it all (col)lapses, you swallow you
into cavernous depths where your calamities/