Let Down by Radiohead

I am curled up in damp sheets,
Listening to the city's heartbeat.
When my throat cries out for water
I get up and suck from the faucet's nozzle.
Mucus binds my eyes.

I go to my computer
And sign in.
My heart flutters
With anticipation.
No new messages.
I close up the machine
And float over to the window,
Telling myself to wait at least an hour
Before checking it again.

I wash the slime of incubation from my skin,
Then dry myself with a towel that feels like a tongue.
Standing in front of the mirror
I reach around and touch my back.
The trench between my shoulders reminds me
That my spine is gone.
I am now a creature in three parts.
Always, there is three.
The father, son, and Holy Spirit.
Head, thorax, and abdomen.

I sit and stare out the window,
Hazed by the mucus from the lips of my cocoon.
The glass is silvered by a supernova on the streets below
And I glimpse myself and the inside of my womb.
Ants swarm over a hill of sugar,
So dense I imagine lifting them off like a shell.
I know that I must go out and buy the latest cleaning
products.
But I'd have to fly to beat the morning traffic.

In my dreams I soar over the city labyrinth.
But when I check my wings in the mirror
I see that they are still unformed.
Rags of skin, coated in protective mucus,
Strung along a gelatinous bone.
I lie in the shower,
Drinking the water as it streams down my face,
Wrapped in my inchoate wings.

I go to my computer
And sign in.
My heart flutters
With anticipation.
A message from you.
As white hot and precise
As the entomologist's blade.
My translucent skin and internal organs
Pour from me like melted wax.

In my womb
Wrapped in mucus
I will never develop
My world skin.
But in this maze
Of eternal traffic
How far is a pair of ragged wings
Expected to take me?



Post. Script.
The first recorded movie is of a woman in a butterfly costume being impaled by a pin. Start as you mean to finish.