blood pressure

Why would you measure your blood pressure?

When your pulse is already a carnival,

a neon beast swallowing itself whole,

rides crashing, crowds screaming,

And the sky bleeding glitter onto everything it touches?

Is it the meth—

a gremlin gnawing wires behind your ribs,

Chewing through the last thread of calm?

Is it the cocaine?

The powdered preacher,

The powdered preacher,

hissing sermons that crack your teeth

And teach your jaw to forget itself?

The cuff wraps like a snake made of fog,

tightens, tightens,

until your arm becomes a question—

a limb you no longer trust.

160 over chaos,

90 over regret,

160 over chaos,

90 over regret.

But why stop now?

Let it rise,

let it rise like a cathedral of shattered glass,

Let the pressure sing in the language of burning wires.

Who needs a number

When the world bends to your pulse,

When the veins on your wrist

Are rivers rewriting their own maps?

Measure it again,

measure it again—

When your chest turns into a door that won’t stop knocking,

When your heart folds itself into origami fireworks,

When your breath becomes helium,

lifting you higher,

higher,

higher—

until there’s nothing left

But the rhythm of your bones

and the quiet that comes after.