Physical World
Kyle Bates
Growing, shrinking
I don’t take care of it
‘cause it’s “what’s inside that counts”
And I’m scared of it--
The way it binds me to the “physical world”
How it reminds me:
Life’s a leaf in October
But there’s no “physical world”--
There’s “no inside or out”
Air flows through the mouth
And into the blood
I wanted to see
In the third grade:
Tiny
Medieval sword--
From my grandfather in Spain--
Into my stomach
Without pain
Or discovery
Through screams she found me
So no insides came out
I wake alone at night
To my anxious heart
Running wild in my chest
A reminder
That I have a body
So it thumps harder:
“- - ---, - - ---”
(Panic attack.)