flutter.

i.    there are swallows gathered in your
  chest, tense and cramped amongst your
heart and your deep lungs.
      they are safe, but they are unhappy.
    they long to break free.

ii.    your ribs are each
  carefully strung together with
tattered, bloody ribbons.
you want to keep the swallows in.

iii. they are your only comfort, the
only fragment of normality
   you continue struggling to
           hold on to.
letting them go means
     letting go of everything you know,
         and everything you have ever been.

iv.    the swallows cannot sleep;
   your frantic heart echoes far too
  loudly within the caverns they nest in.
they are exhausted, but they find it quite
       difficult to be irritable;
   every      lurch      your heart makes
  in the right direction births new
          hope within them.

v.    and when you hesitate
     for the sake of preserving
           your fragile psyche,
   the swallows cry.
they cry and cry and wash away
the universe burning in your eyes
    until it is a blank expanse of
               nothing.