Recursive

Words tumble out in random order
Tones flat, colored by pain and fatigue
World as mirror, leaden and grey,
Diffusely menacing.
I am striving, clawing, screaming soundless
To achieve,
To keep moving,
To not lie down and sink into nothingness,
Watching this strange puppeteer within, choking on tears and jagged thoughts.
Glutted with it, infectious, lost.
I know this place, it’s denizens, it’s truths
This wild thing, hunkered, trembling with rage
Hiding fear
Hiding shame
It inhabits my bones, shrouds itself in my sinews
Shaping my form, shriveling inward
My very skin is engraved with the map
Carved into the shape of me.
In this place, my roots writhe withdrawing
Gnawed, it is agony
To still
Sinking back, quiescent
Embracing impotence as origin, frenzied fight giving way
Gently, and gentled
Interpenetration of story as self, as life
Abiding here now, tangled and exposed
Savoring the fallow dark which limns the path home