Kalends of April, 2020:
I can feel the rat,
dark and angry,
buried
in the furrows of my chest,
trying hard to pull apart
the fiber of my breathing.
Twisting. Writhing.
Clawing
with a feral-hearted hatred
at the bonds that sinew
soul to skin.
I cannot walk across the room without
the rasping of its teeth
along the inside of my ribs,
or speak without it screaming
in the shallows of my breath.
I can only lie beyond
the borders of my life,
checking the thermometer
a hundred times a day
as all the while
I am being
eaten
from the inside out.
