Thereisnosleepinnothingness

I don't want to touch myself with my hands
for fear of swallowing myself into the nothingness
that exists beneath the the patterned lines
and empty hollows of my skin.
I inhale, and smell like gravity
and the sweet echoes of sickened flesh.
Light fades, and the shadows stand, whole
over my body in the empty room.

Then, between the pressures of my mind
there was only silence.
A stillness in the absence of alien thoughts.
I'd wake in the middle of the night
or in the early hours of morning
staring into the mirror
into the blackness.
the empty space where my face must be,
breathing in the dark
where time was tangible
and I was lost in the fragility
of the soft beat in the womb.
I'd touch the glass and whisper
"are you there? are you there?"