It begins behind the eyes.
A soft blister of thought
peeling itself open.
Not memory, not fear,
just the smear between them
shaped like a mouth.
It speaks
in the colour of metal left out in rain.
Each word arrives backwards,
spelled in veins,
dragging itself across my nervous system
like a wet insect
trying to be born.
I feel it–
not crawling,
but rearranging.
The floor folds into itself,
the corners swap places
when I blink too slow.
It continues louder,
not a thought,
but the echo of too many,
stacked like meat in a freezer
with the hum always on.
They crawl out when the lights die,
thin-limbed, faceless,
dripping sleep from their mouths.
One slinks down my throat,
curled like a promise in reverse.
My veins start whispering.
Each capillary
a corridor of pacing doubt.
They march in rhythm,
tap–
tap,
tap.
Like nails on the inside of my skull.
There's a noise in my blood now,
like teeth being counted.
My bones fill with static,
crackle under the thoughts I didn't invite
but let in anyway.
Sleep used to come in liquid form–
clear, tasteless,
poured into my ears by moonlight.
Now it's congealed in the sink,
mottled and pulsing,
refusing the drain.
I don't lie in bed anymore.
I am dissolving across it,
grain by grain.
I count the cracks in time
again–
eyelids peeled, brain like smoke,
each second a needle
threading fear.
And still it creeps, so near.
My blood is ink, my nerves its pen.
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