it was like breathing with a plastic bag tied over your head in and out in and out/ and you should not have been able to breathe at all no one knows that you are really there/ the alarms did not go off they never do/ the people you loved just watched you in a spectrum of stipulations it was always a long list of things you had to do but could not do so they would continue to love you but did they ever really love you no definitely not it was always contingent on some new thing/ not unlike your least favorite trick who had become a regular, he kept calling you back, and every time he found a new game to play he kept calling you back he kept calling you back/ the games had been getting more complex, more and more dangerous, and now he wanted you to hang from the neck while he sucked you off in juices and in jesus and in iron talons and the droning saws/ just breathe just breathe/ your life is a game of survival for survival’s sake/ who else could breathe with a plastic bag tied over their head and your face was one step away from panic in the upstairs room/ the growling of contempt from the other beds, the beds where they were watching you just standing there breathing/ surviving/ scintillant as tits and stars and that way death sang songs to you/ thin as an ivory mask among the strong bodies and the bruised tongues they licked you with/