Experimental Study on the Anti-Disintegration Mechanism of Self
Again, I’m keeping late nights with
these symptoms:
tachycardia, anxiety, insomnia…
I, martyr. & my
body—martyrdom. I, pretty catastrophe.
There’s a raging
storm in the red river beneath my dermis.
There’s a stream
of liquefied stars flowing through my aorta
where anxiety
resides. A vault containing the things that
spikes my heartbeat
sits inside my oblongata. A leech mocks
the mass of my
bones. How do I explain to the therapist
that my bloodshot
eyes are the product of mutilated dreams?
I hate the unpredict-
ability of life. It makes me interrogate my
fate. If the wind
chooses to dance with me, I might mistake
falling for flying.
Outside, there’s a ghost wearing my name,
my face, my mouth…
I might appear as a joke if we bump into
each other. To humor
my absurdity, I laugh, & smile, & play, &
sing, & dance, & dance,
& dance till my feet begins to crackle, till
my stomach begins to
brew butterflies. I’ve been keeping late nights
with these symptoms
& they’ve become enzymes catalyzing my
anti-disintegration.
Everything I know about bruises, I know
against my wish.
Like a tongue on fire devouring oxygen,
I have eaten all the
lights that were to torch my soul. Pry me
open, you’d see a
scroll of dirges stitched to my ribcage. Once
I tried swallowing
the sun but it led to the harvest of my teeth,
my belly—a cementry
for unanswered prayers. I’ve lost count of
how many aubades
have withered in my mouth. Offer me to the
morning light & watch
me bleed rivulets of stained silence. Often,
I call God to rechristen
me. & convert my ribcage into his sanctuary.
To amputate the pain,
I anaesthetize the wounds. To unriddle my
bloom, I rhapsodize
about my recovery. I, half-human & half-prism,
reproduce a rainbow.