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Reptilian Brain
Rebuild my spine, vertebrae by vertebrae,
and cover my nervous tissue,
and protect the lines that trace
the impulses that shoot from my back
into my fingers and toes and wherever
else I might sometimes feel.
Restructure my ribcage, make the marrows
capitulate and bend to the subterranean
dwellings that harbor something that
seems almost alien to me—
that seems like the graffiti stains
of a loitering soul.
Then break my skull against the concrete slabs
that support my laying body,
limp with the lethargic weight
of atrophied instinct and muted desire—
the tenuous plaits of the aphotic mind,
drenched in its abyss of unsunken light.
Force my jaw to unfurl in the waking night,
my cranium shattering the superego
as the cold blood runs deep from
my reptilian brain to boil
where I've forgotten to bask.
poem
by
Tim Stensloff
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