day 7: in my sleep-deprived fierceness, i cowered

With
"You should know me better than that" inked
on the inside of my lips
I try my new wheels

They built tracks just for me
that move all over the school
How thoughtful

It leaves me free to deal with
the onslaught of crow murders flying at my face
and the constant flocks of sparrows circling
around the inside of the dome
that is my skull

I would rather have not faced the day
but you insisted.

Instead I wanted to lay under one of the tables
in the intervention room
until I could pull the moss around me
like a blanket

Until I could hide from the faces
that spelled,
"No more horseshoes!
No more British programmes!
Eat with your fingers
the dish full of splinters
And never be afraid to tell a secret again!"

At the thought of that?
At the sight of following the top half of your head
through the corner of a window
all the way across the river?
At the needles and the clips and the gown?

At the expense of all that
I am spent

and yet I have the feeling
the horrid hallowed-out pit
that this will not be the first time

Watching a small sliver
of one of my greatest fears
realize itself
in front of me

is enough to send me
Swimming with the swans

-Dana Winter