Deterioration as a Series of Little-Deaths

I only feel it in the great empty space underneath my heart,

Where the memorial slips away from the tight curl of my third hand

Unfurling into graceful strips of despair and greed



I never see it, except in flight, winding a thread about my throat

Tracing the way through thinning corridors to its great hub,

Pulling through and out and abandoning me, severed unless I follow



I heard it once, but I couldn’t listen to its quiet hysteria

Seeping from underneath the skin of my arms

Electrifying my hands to continual ripping, throwing, shoving



I will not know it, not its relentless drumming against the inside of my skull

Pounding and rolling my inner eye to blind dilation and slender pain

Nor its million tiny needles delicately slaying my spirit



I must always dread it, hovering beyond the precipice of knowledge

Mocking me with unimportance and simplicity and corundum indomitability

Not even hating me with slim fragile wings and such narrow cruelty