Primal wounds

There aren’t words. There isn’t sense to be made. There are long stretches of emptiness interjected with heaving sobs. It’s such a painful sound, not really even crying. A guttural bawl rising from the depths of the chest. I know that feeling from other times: an old sensation; half numb, half vacant. It reverberates through the ribs and muscles on the left side, and has a life of its own. I can feel my heart beating under my clothes. I can see it rise then fall, sharply, with regularity. That’s how I know the past has gotten all mixed up with this moment. I want to let it out. Sometimes it engulfs me. I feel as if the rest of the world is progressively shrinking and vanishing. Other realities retract. Still my lungs can feel the strain of those sobs.

I don’t know who you are, what you’ve done, who I am; what comes next. The room is filled with an invisible swamp. The furniture now separated by more than just oxygen; by a cold fear. And I feel fixed to the bed. Frozen and unsure. I recognise each object, each item of clothing, but their purpose is forgotten. I am here but here is not now. Here is transformed. Here is an echo, a mirage. Familiarity is turned inside out. There has been a dimensional shift. And no matter how near, now far.