My throat is a battlefield
Where screams go to die
They crawl up like
Spiders with broken legs
Then fall back down
Into my chest cavity
Banging against my ribs
Like caged birds
Until their wings snap
And feathers clog my lungs

My hands are earthquakes
That never stop
Fingers twitching like
Live wires against my skin
I press them into my thighs
And bruises bloom in the form of
Purple flowers watered by adrenaline
The shaking moves inward
My bones rattle like
Wind chimes in a hurricane

My heartbeat is a drum corps
Marching through my temples
I can't tell if it's love
Or terror anymore
A relentless percussion
That makes my vision blur
At the edges like watercolour
Left in rain

My inner child is screaming
Inside my skull
Her voice is sandpaper
Scraping against bone
She claws at the inside of my throat
Until her fingernails break off
And scatter like shrapnel
Through my bloodstream
She's trying to tear her way out
Through my mouth
I swallow her back down
Drowning her in my stomach acid

My skin doesn't fit anymore
It's two sizes too small
And made of barbed wire
Every breath stretches it tighter
I swear I can feel it
Splitting at the seams
Revealing something underneath
That doesn't have a name

I'm simultaneously too much
And not enough
My body is a contradiction of physics
Expanding and collapsing
In the same instant
Like a star dying in real time
The explosion is happening
Inside my chest
The implosion is happening
Behind my eyes
And I can't tell which direction
Is up anymore

Time moves like molasses in winter
Thick
Slow
Suffocating
But also like lightning
Split-second and blinding
Past
Present
And future
Collapse into this single moment
I'm everywhere I've ever been
And nowhere I want to stay

My breath comes in gasps
That taste like copper
Like I've been chewing on
Pennies or blood
Or maybe both
Maybe I've been eating myself alive
Starting with the soft parts
Working my way to the bone

There's a pressure behind my eyes
Like someone's trying to push
Them out from inside
Or maybe pull them
Back into my skull
I can't tell the difference anymore
Between pushing and pulling
Holding on and letting go
Staying and leaving
Alive and Dead

My thoughts are a traffic jam
Every single one trying to exit at once
They're all going in
Different directions
And none of them know
The destination
Just that they need to get there
Now
Immediately
Yesterday

The space between my
Shoulder blades feels like it's been
Hollowed out with a spoon
Scooped clean and left empty
Somehow still heavy
Like someone filled the
Cavity with lead
Regret
The weight of every word I never said

My jaw aches from clenching
Teeth grinding down to powder
Tongue swollen from being bitten
To keep from screaming
Speaking
Existing out loud

There's a vibration in my sternum
Like a phone set to silent
A constant buzz that makes
My whole chest cavity hum
With something that might be rage
Grief
Or both
Braided together so tightly
They've become the same thing

My fingernails have left
Half-moons in my palms
Little red parentheses
Marking where I've tried to
Hold myself together by squeezing
So hard my hands went numb
But numb isn't the same as gone
And together isn't the same as whole

I'm a live wire in a puddle
Dangerous and drowning
Sparking and sinking
All at once
Forever

I memorised this house’s percussion
Before I learned to speak
Survival dictated it
My bedroom door doesn’t lock
None of them do
A house of false privacy
Where boundaries exist only in theory
So I learned to barricade myself with silence instead
To make myself so quiet that they forget I’m here
To breathe so softly that the air around me remains undisturbed
I became a ghost in my own home long before I learned to detach
The walls are thin enough that voices carry
But thick enough that words get muffled
Just the tone remains
Sharp
Accusatory
Defensive
Pleading
A symphony of dysfunction in four-part disharmony
I press my ear against the cool plaster sometimes
To feel the vibrations
Anger has a particular frequency
It rattles your molars if you press your jaw to the wall just right
A house full of translators for people standing three feet apart