#chekhov technique

[the-box-of-chocolates]

Chekhov, Not the Playwright, or James-Lange

I don't know what to name the things that crawl down my skin

what's squirming around in my ribs

or sometimes eating a small hole in the wall of my stomach.

(My roommate made a foot shaped hole in the wall of our apartment.)

I crack my back or my mouth climbs across my face.

If she asks how I'm doing

ghosts in my lungs, feathers in my fingers

is not an answer.

James-Lange will solve my problems.

I took a semester of psych and a semester of Chekhov but I think I felt this way before.

I am very good at solving

unless it's untangling string in my chest

sweeping up broken glass in my diaphragm.

My head, full of bubble wrap, I don't know.