The air feels fake.
Fictional even, when that tightness in my chest occurs.
Slick smokey and black fingers lurk
From the corners of any minuscule space I happen to be in
And creep, and lurch, and crawl towards me.
They drown out the light and **** up the oxygen.
Coal-colored tendrils,
Petrifying sea anemones,
Anatomical autonomous anomalies...
Awful.
I sit paralyzed.
My control comes in the form of doorways.
                                                       ­  Or windows.
                                                               Or room to move my arms.
But these creatures deny me the satisfaction of control,
                                                        ­                           of space,
                                                                ­                        of air.
Synthetic winds fill my body, rapidly, as if I can't get enough.
Shutting my eyes does not help.
It only enhances the sensation of them gripping my arms,
Strapping me down and maneuvering their way down my throat.
Churning my stomach and stopping the expansion of my lungs.
Each bronchial synapse screams.
Every AVM feels like it might burst and fill my lungs with thick blood.
Choking.
The fingers are stuck and tickling my esophagus and they burn,
Like ash from a funnel tunneling through me scorching my organs.
Behind buzzing hummingbird eyelids
Are kaleidoscopic misfitting jigsaw pieces
entering, appearing, disappearing, e x  i   t    i     n      g.
It won't end
It won't end
Itwon'tend
The world is ending all around and the arms and fingers won't
(gogogo go GO)
back to the corners whence they came
Until...

Every cut, every scrape,
Every tear and every 
misgivings we have;
Each heartbreak,
Are etched into our bodies.

The first time I had brain surgery,
At 10 months young,
Mum said she had to hold me so tight,
for hours after,
I screamed until I was done.
Fighting the body tremors.
Eventually, I calmed as she sang.

Other scars came, later in life,
heroes of sporting accidents,
But I didn't notice.
Until the AVM surgery in my 30’s
Resulting in a devastating stroke,
After a novel surgeon made a wrong poke,
And a 40-day coma ensued.

Eventually, waking up numb, in shock,
All senses lost;
I couldn't hear,
See, walk or talk.
Shut down; hell.
No tears, murmurs, gargles or squawks,
Just numbness.

Even now, as I write, my body remembers, 
Sending shivers and tremors 
Of that dreadful season.
Eventually, I walked,
Re-learned how to talk,
Accept my pain, and joy, as I regained 
Mobility, hearing and eyesight,
But the grief is still stored in my heart.

Through poetry, I've tried,
To make sense of and write
Every grain and offence,
To help me build in strength.

I pay homage.
To you, my body,
Tested and true,
Though no beauty queen,
You are a machine,
That doesn't give up,
But writes a new score;
One of the treasures I adore
When I open my eyes and see
The wonders in this world.

I never liked Brenda.
She's manipulative,
likes to ******-analyze people,
and she gaslights Nate.
Oh, and she's a *** addict as well
she has cheated on Nate
more times than I can remember.

I never told Nate about her
he found out on his own.

Nate isn't much better though
he got another chick pregnant
so he cheated on her as well
but as a person overall
he is likeable— unlike Brenda.

Nate has a condition
it's called AVM
it's a malformation
in his brain arteries.

He is currently under the knife
he has a bleed in his brain
they are trying to fix it.

Before the surgery
I saw Nate crying
in his mother's embrace
he kept saying he didn't want to go
and his mother said
he was going to be ok.

I cried a little.
I hope Nate has a chance
of being a dad
I think he would be good at it
and I don't think
I'll ever see Brenda again
but I hope she finds someone
and she recovers from her addiction.

I don't know what's going to happen
I hope that in season 3
of six feet under
Nate doesn't board the bus
that took his father
into the after life...

You know, I hesitate
going in season 3
no, not because I'm afraid
that Nate is going to die
but because I know
that would never care as much
for an actual friend
the same way I care for fictional characters
and that says a lot about me
I only allow myself
to empathize —
when it's fake.