Pressured Speech - Olivia Stephani

Today I’m wrapped in cellophane

Held together by balls of chewing gum and straws

Bubbling, snapping, threatening to swallow myself whole

I count dreams when I’m awake and asleep except I don’t sleep and the dreams come when I’m somewhere in between looking at the ceiling while a spider crawls to her nest In the corner and a candle burns beneath it, the scent traveling through the room, choking me until the gum melts away from my bones and I’m left unraveled

The spinner keeps spinning keeps spinning keep spinning and I’ll stay there while she gets to live in my dream with wax dripping down the walls, burning the paint off until it all melts away

The next today I let it drop

And by then the wax is crusted over, walls charred. I feel ascension in this paper house as the spinner lies dried in the corner and suddenly I wish I was running into a ditch with platinum in my hand.

Laugh at the spinner laughing at me 

Laugh at me laugh at me laugh at me

104 cards and I play them all face up

The fool is weak and so am I