Pin prickles in my **** hand again;
I should get a handle on this
before I completely forget how to hold things
together
and lose myself in tangled, labyrinth veins.
Sneaky, the past catches up,
grabs me by the throat, but I don't choke;
I don't feel it, but I do feel myself slipping down
into oblivion, further and further from help.
She watches, sinks further into her chair,
further into her shell, leaves before she can be
categorized "scathed."
Reality bit her hard long ago,
and she hasn't left her head since.
But this isn't about her;
it's about realizing the clock still says 12:21am
and only half comprehending
that it isn't "still,"
that 24 hours have passed
and I didn't notice a single second.
I sat here trying to shake off the pins and needles
in my foot
and wondering why I never find myself standing
after another loss.
I shake and quiver and try to breathe,
but I'm too busy holding my breath.
I complain because she could've been saved
but didn't want to be,
but I'm no different.
I'm at a loss for words – idiomatic, idiotic,
how does one explain a literal void?
I write the words, but they write themselves off,
they were never there.
I guess the same could be said about me – never there.
But there's physical proof that I was,
proof that I am not a figment of my own imagination,
though I am a victim of it.
A victim of a withering mind, a wandering heart;
isn't that what a writer is?
After I write this, I will scavenge for a needle
and a spool of thread –
after what's broken is fixed,
maybe I'll stop feeling these incessant pins and needles.