Nausea in my chest,
like the butterflies
climbed too high
and decided to live there,
competing
with my precious need for air.
With their thrum,
they call my heart to beat faster,
to leap in place
to the time of their wings.
I swallow,
to keep them down,
and yet I wish. . .
It almost feels worth it
to let them out
for some small bit of relief,
before the butterflies grow again.
The shaking begins,
from the pressure of butterfly wings.
My body is shaking in time,
racked with the joining
to the breathing,
to the heart,
to the wings.
I blink.
I grip soft blankets,
And feel nothing
As my fingers rub the fabric.
The pre-dawn light
whispers through the shutters,
it pours over me,
absent of warmth.
I cannot feel them.
I cannot see it.
I’m not here.
I am lost.
A slid show of photographs
slams into my eyelids,
horrors sleeping from days before,
now stir the butterflies to rioting,
and trigger the bottled panic
to spill into all of me.
Not again, not again, not again.
NOT AGAIN!
Again. . . or is it still?
When will this ever end!?
Not safe.
Not safe, not safe. Not safe!
Help!
No.
There is not help.
I cannot be safe
until these memories
remember
to stay in the past.
The nausea deepens,
asserting the memories’ control,
as if in answer,
as if to say,
“No, we like it here.
We plan to stay,
and lead the pulse
of these butterfly wings."
I swallow,
the butterflies, still rioting,
now doing a tap dance
upon my skull.
The butterflies have multiplied
and filled up my lungs,
until air cannot belong.
Black spots before my eyes
call me into a darkness
that promises not to come.
All the while these photos flash,
nightmares with my waking eyes.
From the window -
A raven watches on,
only seeing
a quiet,
glassy eyes figure,
shaking in the sheets.
