to begin

I am wiggling and hardening in stained glass. Violet. My eyelashes burn, there is a grape-sized pain pushing its way through to the ends. There are terrorists inside my eyelids—any screen, any surface smooth enough to carry light excites millimeters-long razorblades inside my eyelids so that each blink is war torture. I try to stop blinking.

What the fuck did I do? What the fuck do I do?

There are snapping noises. Short, quick, spark-like snaps. I’m on my floor and each muffled click fills my skull with an atomic explosion; my brain, my face is ripping in two. I’m melting. I’m still quaking and hardening in some stained glass. Red, blue. Help me, I manage to think. Help me, I try to will my thoughts to my neighbor.

Each muscle takes turns betraying me. Stabbing me. My stomach muscles are trying to depart from their cozy home beneath my skin. I can’t blink, but I can’t look at my torso. My neck muscles could be plucked and would hum. Razorblades in my eyelids, upset guts. Head hanging open.

There isn’t an easy way to resign to pain. The decision to stop wanting to scream was a hard one to make, almost impossible. The tears making their way from my air shot eyes scalded my face. Mercury from a broken thermometer streamed down and boiled my flesh on their way to the floor where I lay dying.

My mind burnt white with streams of melted glass sticking onto and searing the insides. Yellow. It was a near impossibility to bargain with God or whoever. I will never… Again… Won’t do… Can’t… Will be the best…

I will do anything!

One hope: for my body to lose its pride and fall blissfully asleep and away from the pain. I’d read somewhere that when it’s too much for the body, it’s too much. Only this pain was too cunning. Half second teases, safe for one breath or blink and then my blood, bones and skin were sent back to a boil, a broil—charred.

Tonight I fall.