my digital garden

i'm on fire

i stand under the shower head with firehouse holes
for hours and hours
until the rotting smell of skin
rises and fills the air

until there is so much pain
there is no longer pain
h2o punching through the skin, nerves, blood, and muscle
until i fall unconscious

when the water reaches my nose
the lungs no longer move air
when i finally wake up
coughing and screaming with no sound
but i still can't get up
not until the the flesh has finally healed

never quite enough to die
so i bob my head for a second of air
for every minute of suffocation \

never really dying
but just enough living
to finally stand under the firehose shower head again
30 years of perpetually rotting and drowning

once i tripped in the shower
and part of my eyelids tore off
that i didn't even know covered my eyes
so i step out the bathtub that i took for the world

and the burning started
my skin and eyeballs
hair and genitals
every square inch
searing, roasting, melting
no wonder i was in the bathtub

but, i won't stop
but, i can't stop

for what can be burned off and destroyed wasn't ever real in the first place

#poetry