Maintenance

I can usually hold it open
The rupture between stimulus and response
The illusion of humanity
Where autonomy is strangled by nostalgia

Until the totality of the world
Crosses my event horizon

Perception spikes bleed together
Inexorably closing the tear
Suddenly the wound is gone
A sacrificial retreat into feral witness
My body remembers what it’s like to breathe
And how long it’s been since it could

But being fully present is dangerous
For a dissipative structure