If my eye does not stop twitching,
I’m going to go insane.
I. amgoing. togo. insane.
my eye is twitching
and my ears are ringing
and my stomach is turning
and throat is constricting
and I’m trying,
just trying,
to breathe.
my hands are shaking
with hellos and good-byes
and my feet are
step-stepping
from here, to there, and back again.
always gone and then back again.
Never quite walking away.

My eye is twitching,
like a tiny irregular
heartbeat,
like a wish to remind me
that I cannot live
without it.

My left eye is twitching.
my right eye is blinking back tears.
the latter begs the former to stop
its mindless twitching
and take on some blinking responsibility.
but salty drops of water fall, anyway, on the left
and on the right.

my ears are ringing with I love you’s and I hate you’s
a sure sign that, indeed, my body is giving up.
nonexistent songs make their homes
along my tiniest bones.
their harmonic melodies curl themselves along my cochlea.
nonexistent songs: singing love, love, love.

my stomach is turning
with the uninterrupted rhythm
of a high-powered washing machine.
‘round and ‘round and ‘round and ‘round
thirty-two minutes of ‘round-the-clock
wishingandwashing.

my eye is twitching
and my throat is constricting
so that I’m (mostly) holding my breath.
and I don’t mind.
because I
would hold my breath
forever
if it would stop this endless eye-twitching.

my throat is squeezing and relaxing
so that only the tiniest particles of air
brush themselves against my windpipe.
only those air molecules
containing miniscule droplets of wet saliva
are heavy enough to slide downward.
my throat is pressed so tight
that tiny air particles
get stuck within,
and something of a lump
enlarges itself against my trachea,
like a warning:
other air particles: remain where you are.
you will not continue downward
to the freedom of the lungs.

but I would hold my breath forever if
this eye would just stop twitching.

my hands are shaking
and even as my left
places its seizuring self against
the ever-twitching eye,
it braces itself against the possibility of a falling fist.
it presses itself against the unrelenting eye,
then falls
as it…as I realize that if my eye were all shades
of black and blue
I would not care
so long as it discontinued its twitching

my feet are walking. walking, no, running.
suddenly running from the insanity of the twitching eye
yet, its unforgiveness remains.
it is a penalty,
a punishment in itself.