The ache starts in my stomach. It slides up my esophagus, into my intestines. My chest is frozen, and then begins moving inward, crushing my weak lungs. Electric shocks burst through the veins in my legs. My shoulders tense, my fingers curl.

"Where are you?" I hear a whisper in the dark. I feel my lips brush together, my tongue does a dance inside my mouth.

I roll to my side. Tears slide to my lashes, and no further. The ache is like a black hole, sucking everything in, towards my chest. I'm afraid that I can't hold it all, I will burst.

Forbidden words imprint themselves on the walls of their prison cell. Pink flesh is scorched with words that have no language. Inscribe me with these. Fire burns and cleanses and leaves scars.

You are not my past, nor my future. You are everything, for all time. This distance causes this strange emptiness. The absence of your hands makes my skin reach out to you. Tearing at the nerves and muscles that lie beneath. The pain is growing stronger.



My heart has been replaced by an exquisite lack of anything that can be explained by science. Something unseen, but theorized. Powerful currents draw my organs from their proper places into knots and tangles.





"Please," the whisper comes again. The flesh, my tongue is dry. "[beep]" the forbidden syllables, forever trapped. The non-existence growing, please take these words as well.