BY EMILY MULLIGAN
Floating away as delicately as a prismatic butterfly,
While being smothered in corroded chains.
I feel as if I have no core,
Yet am being weighed down by the earth itself.
My conscience is soaring,
A bloodied brain and viscous eyeballs tethered to scarlet balloons.
Off into the star-riddled cosmos,
Past the ever-expanding chasm in the ozone,
Ascending past nonexistent heavenly bodies,
And drifting by a malignant, unnecessary God.
Yet here I stand,
My feet as thick as cement and my lungs listlessly pumping dust.
I feel jagged,
I feel faux,
And I feel spectral.
Those same cardinal balloons hover past,
Viscid eyes peering down,
At a hunk of flesh stirring without a presence,
A sinewous casing without a soul.
Eventually mind meets body once more,
As my essence slithers under my skin,
Through gristle and bone,
Gushing into ventricles and veins,
Then finally nestling warmly against my cranium.
