nathanael.ink

it feels like there is a tumor
engorging,
or whatever it is tumors do,
behind the front wall of my chest
applying pressure to my lungs and my intestines
one could wonder if that is where the heart should be

I can’t think about that though…

the muscles in my arm pupate
I can feel the larva underneath my skin just waiting to unskin
and in my throat
jealous and angry birds
pull the material for their nest from the lining of my esophagus

and every step I take to quench them
enrages every beak and beetle in my skin

I haven’t a clue how I endured it
but it seems I did
and that gives me hope I can endure it again
maybe even another
but GOD knows how long something like this could accumulate
before I am just a lump of beetles and beaks and butterflies