just an animal

the chaos breaks like shards between my toes
and sloshes back from shin to thigh to groin
not content to settle there
my torso also feels the pain
as liquid fire ascends to breach my brain
and acid rain
suffuses all the thoughts and feelings there

I’d like to care
I’d like to have the luxury of space and time
to work the kinks out of this nasty cross
the intersection of my heart
and loss

But more, I’d like to sleep
to sink beneath sweet waves of safe and sound
to give the enemy this round
and fight again another day
maybe not tomorrow not just then
maybe next week, maybe when
the price of fighting isn’t quite so steep

but chaos doesn’t care for careful thought
its hungry waves disorder as they sweep
across my nervous system
in a counter rhythm
to my heartbeat and my wishes
and my sanity and dreaming
and my clear-eyed, hopeful seeing…

my body holds the monster of the deep

I sit up, draining words in jumbled flow
it takes the edge off of the stormy night
it takes the pressure from the waves below
to write this in defiance of my plight
it is as though
to name the chaos lessens chaos’ bite...

a beast described
is just an animal...