Fearing every touch
Every intimate thing
Because of you

Fearing the way you look at me
Because maybe, just maybe it will happen again
And again

Fearing my own thoughts
Floating around in my head
At high speeds and the neverending cycle

My life
Never the same
Because of you

Your roots is your foundation
Don't droop
Stand onto your roots

Please don't hurt me.

The face
Bent, taunt, contorted
The smile
Torturing, teasing, abhorrent

The body
Deformed, beastly, unsightly
The aura
Malevolent, sinister, formidable

It.
Something that lingers.
In wait.
Preying.

It’s those words that I’m afraid of the most
The ones you haven’t yet spoken
Latching onto me like the veins that run through me
Circulating through me again and again
******* both my time and emotions out of me
Sooner than I can process, one grows into a swarm
Making it impossible to resist the current
But once I seem to be drowned by the flood
Once I’m on my last few breaths
Everything drains
Left with not even a drop

You feel your chest heave
But breath does not enter your lungs.
As air flows around your balloons and into to your stomach,
your lungs scream for your gut to share.

Your windpipe feels like less of a pipe
and more of a plug--
blocking the life force from entering,
quickening your heartbeat.

All because it's 8:13,
which means:
two hours until sleep
two hours to fill
I need to shower, still,
two full hours
two free hours
work tomorrow
but first, two whole hours
to do...
what?
Shower,
right.
Two hours.
Only two hours.
Gotta make 'em count!
But how?
Two hours to fill
I need to shower still
two full hours
two free hours

Nervousness, why?
Abstract, human-constructed time.

Two whole hours still
Only two hours to fill.

I can't breathe
gasp
I feel the water fill my lungs
panicking
I can't see anything around me
Searching
It's overwhelming me
screams
It's surrounding me
breathes in
I hit my back on something
opens eyes
Something soft
breathes slowly
I'm okay
smiles lightly
It was only a dream