Outside the trees are lower than usual
with knowledge of the infection printed
underneath these headaches, they sulk
and howl like war sirens.

My violent eyes are guns, blowing up images
sharper than a gaze, sharper than a graze
that tugs me inside tiny stalls,
this is where foetal positions are favoured.

I'm in twelve pieces and they grumble still from their trunks,
and I'm sliding in and out of gaps for extra oxygen,
there are tiny lungs in my blood,

gagging, there are calories in my skin, sinking
through the tumours at two oh three AM
next to cold concrete, my limbs are corkscrews
waiting for command,

I cannot lie still - under all this there is an ocean,
a heart in mid-skydive, a thought
in a car crash thinking
I should be something more, I should be something better,
I should be anything, anything at all
other than this.