It runs black
and grey
like static in the nerve channels.

Suddenly there are holes in the pages
on which you are trying to right
the wrongs of your life.

Not quite hunger, not quite sadness
yet not, not.
The river is filled with thorns.

Your skin shrinks against you,
constricting the flow of time,
dilating the space between breaths.

You can even feel it in your fingers,
the tips numbed as if singed,
so you press and press and feel nothing.