Building up until you’re breaking down,
closing in until they’re all around,
fish like thoughts like robots in reverse,
like a curse in clockwork in which

you've forgotten how to flip this switch
from off to on from dusk ‘til dawn;
boiling point to make you clench,
teeth gritted and nerves pressed,

cerebrum stressed like a suicide hex
wearing you until you’re skin and bones;
zero fat and a bundle of mistaken homes
but none your own, like an infant alone

abandoned in the freezing cold,
no sense of the blessed nor the rest;
calming tears for misguided fears
shed along the wild prong,

poked and bled into those ahead
of your own flesh and bone;
with tension evolving to apprehension,
nails dig into palm as you learn never to stay calm.