The creeping mould and announcing lock. I fall to my knees, wreathed in hotskin steam. My knee cracks; flesh splits; bone fractures (just a little break) like a papercut beneath the skin. It sets the sand falling. The tile fractures, too; white slick stepping back to make room for rough edges. They come then: just in time! To see the sand make its mound; to watch my teeth roll like fat drops of water and collect as the condensation among the grains, thin red mist following after. They watch my tongue roll and flop wetly to land between my outstretched hands, slithering and hissing in the humidity. The glass is frosted: is it still glass if you cannot use it for seeing through? For favours and watching and looking?

I want to poke my tongue at my schizogenic maw, but it wiggles feebly before me, so I use my fingers instead, stretching and prying, and I feel the sharp softness of withered gum, its wings clipped. My thumb is strange against my jaw, too long and stiff in its movements, the sharp nail staccatoing against the wet pink a beat I don’t control. 

Why is it so thin?

Why is it shaped like that?

Bulbous and twiggish in all the wrongest places? Why is the glass frosted? I want to tell them: pull it out! Take my fingers from my throat! Fetch me a towel, and a brush for all this sand.