The ceiling isn't where I left it. It’s breathing now. expanding in 4/4 time while the floor tiles, Turn into tectonic plates. I’m standing in a hallway, that stretches into a needle’s eye. You ever feel the weight of your own shadow? Not the light-blocking kind, But the lead-heavy inventory of every mistake you’ve tucked Into the lining of your coat. The air tastes like copper and burnt ozone. Static on the tongue. Henry’s ghost is pacing in the corner of my vision. He’s not saying anything, just pointing at the clock. But the hands are melting. Minutes are leaking, onto the rug like black ink in a swimming pool. I try to grip the armrest of the chair, But my fingers pass through the wood like it’s a suggestion. A memory of a solid object. The radiator is humming a frequency that sounds like an argument I had in '94. It’s coming up. The pressure in the inner ear. The sound of a thousand dry leaves, being crushed by a steamroller. I can’t find the exit because the door is just a painting of a door. And the painter is laughing. Lungs full of mercury. Eyes wide, staring at the sun through a pinhole. The logic is fracturing! The structural integrity of the "Self" is a lie! Push!!! Through!!! The!!! Wall!!! The fever breaks... but the room stays wet. I’m wading through the debris of the ego now. The silence is louder than the riot was. Funny how that works. You spend your whole life building a fortress Only to find out you’re the one Locked in the dungeon. I see my reflection in a puddle of spilled coffee. It doesn't recognize me. It just asks for the time. The jazz is a skeletal thing now. Ribcages of melody. Bare bones of a rhythm. I’m walking down a street where the houses are made of Unsent letters. The wind smells like old books and cold rain. I’m not sweating anymore. I’m just... evaporating. But the pulse is coming back. A low-end throb in the soles of my feet. It’s not a dream if you never wake up, right? It’s just a new reality. A permanent shift in the axis. The walls are starting to vibrate again. The colors are turning into sounds. I am the fever!!!!! I am the architect of the delirium!!!! Tear the calendar off the wall!!! Smash the mirror!!! There is no cold!!! There is only the burn!!! The glorious, unending burn!!! Wake up. Or don't. It makes no difference to the stars.
