It seeps through the walls, greasy and heavy.
It sits on my shoulders, crushing my chest.
It boards up the windows with lead sheets.
It counts my vertebrae with long fingers.
It drinks the oxygen before my lungs can.
It stretches every minute until I am frantic.
It presses on my eyelids with cold copper.
It sews my mouth shut with invisible thread.
It moves heavy furniture inside my very temples.
It wrenches the joints into rusty hinges.
It counts my breaths, unblinking, from the corner.
It smells of iron and stagnant dust.
I –