s.o.c. 8

I don't look like I'm dying

like I ask myself if I abuse the blade or if the blade abuses me

if the blade is to blame at all.

Let there not be light.

Let no one see me like this.

My nervous system is a sulfurous river, and I've lost the will to swim. The grass growing by the wailing water dies and decomposes, every blade blotted like the turquoise tiles under my silent glass.

Ghosts ascend and descend the stairs to my bedroom. Up. Down. Up. Down. And I toss and turn. Turn. Toss. Turn. Toss. Delirious, debauch. How do I exorcise an invisible enemy? How do I exercise the strength to plead for help when I am inhuman, inhumane, when even the mark of the beast, the evidence of my crime, I've kept up my sleeve, invisible?

Do I look like I'm dying

When my glazed gaze, confused, cloudy, calls to your corneas?

I appear. Disappear. Appear. Disappear.

Ghosts descend and ascend the stairs beside my bedroom. Down. Up. Down. Up. And I turn and toss. Toss. Turn. Toss. Turn

to one of them.

Am I one of you yet?

Their glazed gazes, cold, clear, call to my corneas, and they answer,

No, not yet.

I disappear. Appear. Disappear. Appear.

Then, let there be light.

And the silent glass suddenly flickers to life.