This night, my heart is smothered in

bubble-wrap. a makeshift tomb for a

carcass that reeks in every sense but

olfactory. my eyes are marinated in the

absence of substance; an ear, then the

other, is talking in its sleep and vomiting

shrapnel over the beige wallpaper stuck

in my brain.

My body is an apartment I cannot afford.

the tongue of empathy has long receded

from my comprehension, a hairline reined

into geriatry by the charioteer who whips

me whether or not I've made a mistake.

You know something is wrong when you sleep

expecting to blink away the nightmare; you know

something is wrong when the highest platform

your voice can attain is the bald crown of your

adam's apple before unspooling into incoherence;

you know something is wrong when tilting your

head feels like dislocating an attic of induced

positivity; you know you are collapsing into yourself

when you want to say goodbye to existence and

hello to goodbye; you know

you are fading into insanity,

when you turn in your feigned slumber and find a

shadow waving on the other side of the bed with

a finger pointed up; you follow his gesture only

to find that the ceiling has turned into the rocky,

splintering underside of your bed, and two feet,

your own two feet, are dangling from the opposite

end, and you realise-

you have become your own monster.

The wasps in my eardrum. The beehive

in my throat. the attic in my forehead.

the static against my heart, turning

every stuttered syllable into a rancid

cassette playing in reverse, the taste

of defeated monsoon up my spine,

the silhouettes of time and space

caressing the fringes of my hair- all

breathe a single choir over my wounds.

I have not fallen into depression.

depression has fallen into me.

reducing all that I am, into a

grammatical and emotional

object.