Quick Switch

80 heartbeats per minute turns

to over 100

and

here it comes again

so you sit down…

cold floor familiar with your gravity.

As you whittle the edges of your thumb

to nothing but ash and hangnails,

your heart mallets your ribs so hard

that it shakes your stomach and

curdles the thoughts in your mind,

spoiling your face

as you picture the smell of

your sour milk life.

Calm hands rattling on

knees like live wires

but your gaze stays stretched and

secure.

White teeth peeling

your lips like apples

til your flushed flesh core is exposed

beneath the veiny cracks of thin skin.

A cushioned womb

holding your beestung tongue

and jigsaw teeth

that are glued to set

over silent words.

While your listening ears fill with a child

gurgling toothpaste water,

your mother rings in…

“Turn off your brain.”

But the mind is not a lamp

and perhaps we are already

in darkness?