Aneurysm
From the floorboards, they reach. Hands. Call me crazy, but I see them, the sands crooning, grainy fingers outstretched. I walk like a cat, and the balls of my feet itch, every footfall life or death. Mary have mercy, I’m a wreck- adrift, hell on ice, the skaters painting with drawn blood in the roiling sea of my thoughts. I cannot run from my mind. Twisting, turning, bribing, taunting. Who’s to blame? In a crowd, where must I look? My eyes roll, I mustn’t stare- but to hold my head low is torture, to invite them to dart in, asking me questions, poking, prodding, am I alright? After fourteen years, I give in, knees weak, and will them to take me. If this is not hell, pray tell, what waits on the other side? Visions do not swarm me on death’s door, but a pleasant dream, the fleeting kind I haven’t had in a long time greets me. I cry glass tears and eat iron shards. Awake, in come the delighted shrieks, the creatures in cahoots with claws at their flanks. I’ve never been good at maths, but they number a million in their ranks.
Ryder Song© 2018
