I let it drip; just one down my cheek:

my nose is too small to catch it.

It’s cold against my hand that’s pressed to my face in pain.

I don’t want to feel it, but I have to.

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know it,

it’s gonna hurt, it’s gonna be hell, I don’t want it, but it’s mine to have for the better.

And it won’t wait for me.

Not at all, not even a little.

The pain chases me, scratching my bare back, grasping around my throat and squeezing me still,

until it has me like a snake would.

And I have no escape, no relief, only a constant loss of air

from my shallow lungs.

I try to sob, but nothing breaks through it’s grasp

past my peeling, blue lips.

I try to gasp, inhale anything, anything at all.

Let me inhale water at least.

Give me something, give me some space, let me draw in.

Let me be free.

Unlock my cage.

I only leave my prison to leap straight behind bars.

Bars of fleshy snake, that won’t release me.

I can’t even plead anymore.

There’s -- there’s -- there’s -- no -- no -- no -- ai -- air. No -- no -- no -- wa -- water.

No -- no -- nothing.

All I can do is exhale and relish the last feeling of oxygen left as

it rubs against my tender chest.

I love the friction I never knew I needed to love.

And now it’s leaving, and there’s nothing I can do.

And I just release, and let it kill me.

Because I can’t beat the snake and I can’t beat the pain.

It scratches my back.

It squeezes my breastless chest.

It makes me a woman.

It makes me human.

It steals my life.

And then.

Then.

Then.

No.

There’s still nothing.

No inhalation.

The audience waits with baited breath for the inhale they know, they know, must be coming.

But it doesn’t come. It doesn’t come.

 

 

 

 

 There’s just a silence,

 

 a quiet, 

 

a nothing,

 

a waiting, 

 

a pause, 

 

 

a pause, 

but no play

no play.

Just a pause that goes on and on and on and on.

And another drop slides across my face,

coldly,

passionately,

cruelly.

A horrible whisper that what I think is death isn’t, and now isn’t the worst.

I have more to expect.

This cold entrapment that is airless and waterless and entirely encapsulated is just gestation.

I will be born again, into a crueler world;

into a place that hurts more.

It’s not just nothing but something

and something is worse than nothing.

Because I will be in that cage.

But then it won’t be fleshy snake.

It will be jet fuel and crass metal

and the expanse of an ocean of water

that I can’t touch or smell or hear or taste or see.

And I will be so far, so gone, so far.

And without aerated lungs,

I whimper.

I whimper.

And I want to know.

I want to know.

i wont too no.

Wouldn’t it be nice? Wouldn’t it be so nice?

Wouldn’t it be very nice? Wouldn’t it be incredibly nice?

Well, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t…  

 

How long must I wait, oh Lord?

Deliver me. I cry to you with every breath (no breath).

I cry to you in the morning and in the evening.

I cry to you with the movement of the sun. It never stops, it never ends. Let me… let me… 

 

I lay still;

waiting.

Dead but knowing there’s more.

I dig into my own self and writhe, but that does nothing but hurt more.

Every place I turn presents me with another six nails to bite me and scratch me and make me bleed.

So I pause.

Again.

Again.

Pause I so.

Where is the light?

Light is sweet. It. It. It is pleasant.

It is pleasant for the eyes to see the.

See the sun.

Where is the sun?

It’s inside of my cage. I want inside and outside now. 

 

Outside

 

I will get there.

But freedom needs earning, apparently.

And freedom is sweeter the longer it is longed for.

The pain of no freedom will give me more freedom.

More love. More strength.

I will survive.

My heart is encaptured in a much lovelier place.

A place away from my cage.

A place with my prison.

My heart is free, though I am not.

My heart is my ambassador to the outside that will keep me living.

Maybe not alive, but living.

There is a small hope for my life.

But it must wait. It can not come to me yet.

But it is a power so strong, so alive, so sure, that I only need one touch.

One touch and my whole being will be.

 

Be!

 

Warm, pink, awake, free, alive!

 

I must cross a desert to reach my oasis.

A desert in my cage that is dry and hot.

My body will stay cold and cruelly, infallibly dead.

But deserts have endings, and I will reach mine.

Though I have no air, no water, no space, I will make it across.

And I will reach the sun. And I will be delivered. And I will be resurrected;

reborn again into a better world.

You must die to live.

I will live, though the journey be a million years.

For I know where my hope comes from.

And I know where my strength comes from.

 

And I do know, in the end. 

 

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The drop between my cheek and hand dries, and I stand up.

And I carry the weight of the snake around my neck,

and I let pain cling.

I will survive in the desert place with them with me.

For they impregnate my rage and my stubbornness also.

And they will leave me in the end, I’m not afraid

(but I am a little; they’re not my friends, and they bite me hard).

When they are gone I will rejoice and I will have you.

I will.

And we will “made it”.

Because deserts have endings, and breaths come back

to break the pause for play, and one touch is all it takes.