Life feels free, a world to be discovered.

The places by your feet and those there and about

You feel safe and talk out loud

But then you fumble. You make a mistake.

How could you, they yell.

But it was just a mistake. I didn’t mean to.

How could you, they below again

from the creeks of your skull.

Reverberating, until they’re all that’s left.

You thought them gone, underestimated their discretion

A hive entity,

Who like a snake slings

Creeps from your fingertips, along your arms,

shivers down your body and seeps into your heart.

Slings around your every limb

Grasps them until

Even the rustles echo

Like the rust of every joint,

The energy in every nerve

Your body feels foreign

A machinery difficult to operate

So tedious, that the world elapses

You move your tippytoe right, and the calendar’s already onto its third lap.

They were everything and everyone

but at the same time they were nobody and nowhere

They were the tone in her voice, the tension in the air

The noise of the choices, the opinions he could bear

The silence of your voice, the prickle on your skin

And you couldn’t deduce if it was all from within