Breadcrumb #625

LINDSeY FRANCES PELLINO

it’s hereditary, isn’t it?
the morbid heirloom. a tradition 
in which i dissect each disaster
frog belly in the lamp light
slime yellow skin peeling its curtain
prematurely, as practice. 

i have taxidermied the death of my family
in a thousand different ways. the mind is not a prison
but a factory.

the first panic attack i can remember
blooming its moon flower in my amygdala
i sit on the floor, using the couch as a desk,
doing my homework, using one of those
“scalp tingle massage” wands on head.
my mom goes out to dinner with her friend,
and the thought - the eerie smoothness
of a riverspun pebble - lodged, seedlike,
lodestone, homebase.

she is going to die.

she didn’t, she doesn’t, she hasn’t,
yet. but that antipearl of angst
still worms its way through
the meat of my skull. age nine 
to now. a fine wine.

this thread i’ve shared with
those who can’t leave the house,
can’t cross bridges, can’t fly on planes,
can’t breathe, can’t reproduce 
without post-partum psychosis,
can’t make it without at least one
attempt to check out -

this thread quilts me in,
one soft square,

in its tapestry of mirrors.

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