running still.

it comes on slowly, like remembering a dream after you've been awake for hours. bits and pieces catch their thorns on my soft mind and make my hands shake in tiny jerks and shivers.

i haven't been able to eat or concentrate. i can't even put a sentence together correctly without questioning every space and pause.

it creeps over my arms and constricts them around my torso, squeezing until breath is shallow and wasted. it seeps down my legs, dehydrating them until their curled up to my body, now rocking. it gently makes its way inside, my stomach not having the strength to battle one more minute, my heart asleep, my spine whining against the sheer malice of pain.

it's feeding on hope and laughing at my will power ... how could i think i was going to make it one more day. how could i possibly gather the confidence to fight back.

loss is taking over, and i'm afraid it's going to topple this wall i've built so high. i'm going to cry, i'm going to thrash, and it's just going to make me weaker, more vulnerable, soft. i'm kicking against air while trying to breathe it all in.

how could i think that i would make it one more minute without bleeding, without hiding, without frailty?