You share my shape (though a tad fuzzier
at the edges),
there is no mistaking that outline
which bleeds into the backdrop and
pretends to be unassuming,
‘you will not even hear me’ I reckon
it purports to any who can make out
the rough words that spill in mirror
to my own guttural grunts.

I am slumped in chair, the windows
fogged thanks to misaligned temperatures,
my arms rough, bleeding, resembling
a Braille page,
though these dots glare red and far
too mixed to read anything other
than warped garbage, though more
legible than any creations that might
spring forth from mouth as
my head rolls and eyelids battle to pry open.

My shadow flutters, a nearby flickering
light waging war with photons
and disrupting the stasis we have come
to agree to as part of our joined
existence, though I know it would be
rid of me, of my makeup that somehow
is even more empty,
of the places I take us both, it dragged
with every movement I make,
a silent yet screaming participant.