Waiting for Wednesday
Brain and body crusted in panic A hardened film of scales that flakes and cracks, only to resurface and congeal once more I am somewhere beneath the crust I am under the blood and softened tissue, fissures in the skin, liquid cells rising and beginning to fester Pus is a definite sign of bacteria and infection Leave it be, they say The human urge to purge and push is too great for me stay my hands I have no fear of puckering scars Doctors never account for the erosion of waiting, the toll it exacts from the basic functioning systems like eating, thinking, existing All my organs are hushed They have ceased their frenetic hustle, paused with quaking kneecaps I breathe, just barely, somewhere underneath This dragon scale skin shifts, a river that undulates with sporadic inefficiency Bloating and expanding until I am the throat of a frog, accordion filled lungs, a cascading filing cabinet, a volcano mid-cough, every inch of my body waiting Only to deflate,