i can feel myself fraying, the edges of my neural connections stretched out as my limbs spread across the expanse of the seven seas and continents, and i swear it will still not be enough. a braided rope coiled with tension, wound upon itself, devouring itself when the end meets its beginning. ouroboros, can she eat herself alive before the living eat her? it’s the hand that feeds the mouth, the head that plunges to depths in greeting of toes. pick me up, for i’ve fallen: imagine my forehead against the cold ceramic title, my temple resting atop memory foam. sink me before i am sunk. i am crushed beneath something, weightless breaths in a heaving chest. i want myself back, i’ll whisper to no one in particular, to some soul out there who may still be listening; or maybe i’ll simply think it, and if i think hard enough this time around, it will come true. my mind’s eye is astigmatic, misshapen, bent out of shape because none of the light is hitting where it’s supposed to. light is meant to illuminate the important bits when we are abandoned in the dark, but obsession in the dark swallows whole. opens its jaws wide and clamps shut, could almost lick its lips for more. consumptive. unsatiated, unslaked. might these compunctions kick in, eventually. purge my system clean, detoxify. let go, let me go, grant me the favor of release because we cannot go on like this. but most days, i could go on forever. in the throes, in the valleys. find me curled up, cushioned in a bottomless pit. some stubborn, craven flame keeping warm; stupidly begs for more, clumsily oxygenated on impulse. regression to my means. who was i before i found these marks on my skin, my scriptures, my synapses. i’m so sorry.