let me tell you about my panic attacks
I become a skeleton
like a model of red wire,
one long blood vessel
for my entire upper body.
My mouth, a mesh cage
and that steel runs
down my gullet
and through my arms,
my fingers,
a framework for deconstruction.
Sometimes they come
in times of high stress,
others without season,
flashbulbs of blue, black, purple,
an internal bruise on the mind
being pounded upon,
impounded
by flashes of madness.
rigor mortis
When I sit still for too long
I get a pain in my left thigh,
someone rubbing a brick
against my muscles,
maybe hoping that
by applying bricks to my limbs,
I will somehow
become encased in cement
and then all the vitality,
the jollity, the joie de vie
may drop from me
and then I’m left
swimming in rigor mortis
as the dead swim through life.
I stand up
and walk about a bit
enough to get
the blood going again,
a reminder that my body
is little more than a pump.
Then I sit again, and wait
until the pain returns
and the whole charade
begins over,
a dead body turning
in an open grave.
Flight of the dragonfly 