Sometimes
She would feel detached but
Not from this reality or family or friends
It was more of an out-of-body experience
Or maybe a kind of possession
Where neither party is wholly host nor parasite

Sometimes it worried her

On this particular night
When she looked in the mirror
What she found gazing back was
Hardly recognizable and
What familiarity did exist
Was only of feature
Not of the expression that
Lately always seemed to catch her
A little off guard

What's your deal anyway?

She half-expected a verbal response but
What she got was a hint of a spark and
An upward turn at the corner of the mouth

Expression faded
Head slightly tilted
She continued to stare and
Slowly lose herself
Within the deepening void of
Dimensional distortion

When suddenly
Gaze became glare
Eyes narrowed and flared
A blur rippled past
A chill curled at the base of her spine and
Sprung up through her body and
Into her lungs

It stopped there
Expanded there and held
Her breath hostage

Eyes locked
Face white
Skin cold

And then she cracked and
They both laughed
And turned away
And vanished

I wander these claret corridors
In search of humanity lost
And I find you waiting
Behind a pane of translucence

I was chosen, you tell me
You've been waiting for me
To save you from this hell
And I believe you

I can see the longing in your eyes

There's sadness there too and
I want only for your happiness and so
I devise a plan to set you free

But it's not enough

You need me to see
To truly see
What this freedom will mean
And so I try
Again and again
To empathize with a desperation that
Only the imprisoned can understand
And I just want to show you
That all you really need
Is time in the world
To breathe

But it's not enough

You need proof, you say
As you roll up a sleeve
And I watch in helpless horror
As you cut and bleed
With a surgical precision
That only comes from repetition

To show me your humanity

And as it drips and falls
And collects on the floor
Through the red
I realize

There's none left in your eyes

What was there before
Is now gone, devoid
Of all emotion
Drained
From your body and
Pooled at your feet
And I try to run out
But it's far too late

You're already gone
The door's locked
The oxygen's run out
And I'm the one
Left for dead

She affects me and
Sticks with me and
Grows with me
In various ways
Throughout my life
Diligently collecting
Along the way
All those memories
Unforgettable experiences
Reflecting
With no apologies
Exactly the person
I've become and
Forcing me
To love her
All the more
Despite the past
She refuses to
Let me forget

I am a simply stated
Lullaby of quiet prosody
Slipping through the air
In steady, predictable verse
Down halls running tangent to
Desires vastly more complicated than my own

And while I may sometimes linger and lunge
And parry with time
(All in an effort to prove my depth)
In the end I know
If you wanted to
You could deconstruct these rhythms with ease
And you could transcribe this tune in your sleep
And when you awoke
You'd deliver your own variations
With a brilliant, effortless intricacy
That I could only dream of emulating

It's a thinly-veiled secret
A laundered affair
You and that walk and
Always
Making a scene and
Me and my lack of
Tongue
Arms
Legs

And dear god
I love it
The way you stop me
In my tracks
Not that it's the first time

You've caught me
On the flat of my back
So embarrassingly often

And I think I love that too

Are you even here?
I can rarely tell
And so often
It really is just me
Left to my own devices
Left to wonder
If it's all some cruel joke

But I'm clear now and you should go
There's nothing left to say and
I really just need a day or two
To rest and think and wait

Or ******* move...

I don't even like mango
But I feel compelled to consume this one

To savor its every liquid thought and
Collect its every persistent ray of color

And allow them all to dissolve on my tongue
As a solitary solution of sweet perspicacity

Not like raindrops falling into my mouth
But like tiny citrusy snowflakes

Colliding with my tastebuds at the speed of sound
And exploding on impact into an existential array

Of earthbound fire