The Nerve explores the visceral reality of physical and emotional survival. These pieces are my witness to the body's resilience through chronic pain and trauma.
Words stripped down to the pulse. This is the poetry of the body and the immediate; the sharp, unpolished friction of being alive. These pieces don't ask for permission; they are the spasms of the day-to-day, captured in short gasps and high-voltage bursts before they can be refined.
Phone rings
Stomach drops
Known fear
Clock spins backwards,
A wreckage in the gears.
Phone to ear
Heavy sigh
Vibrating thrum
No words transpire,
A barbed wire knot.
Frozen
in
time
Breath catches
Mind flashes,
Eyes yield,
The floor tilts.
A pooled descent.
The dial tone hangs there—
a dead chord in the chest cavity.
It’s like you know, but you don’t.
The smile is a wall,
but behind it,
the jaw locks
on a sudden scream.
I am hollowed by a mirror
shattering in heat.
Each shard a tiny mouth,
gasping for the light.
The future is already
fractured in my palm,
a glass eye staring back,
blind with my own salt.
I taste the iron memory
of a life I didn't get to live,
sewn with the threads of
every unwept tear.
The ribs: a rusted cage.
Air arrives uninvited—
a hollow haze,
fuchsia mist.
Entangled lungs
compress
beneath a screech,
muted.
Lost in the silence.
A mirage.
The tongue is a white-washed root.
The throat, a dry well.
The echo: scorched.
She is the win that feels like theft.
The taste you only find
once the garden chokes on salt.
Marrow hardens to flint.
Swallow the trophy’s glass.
Let the throat bloom red.
Pardon my dust.
I’m finally burning the
floorboards you paced on,
charring the wood until the
smell of your betrayal is choked
out by a much cleaner heat.
I spent too long as a
damp rag in your hands,
soaking up your spills and
staying quiet in the dark.
But dry wood catches fast,
and I’ve been parched for years.
You thought you were the architect,
the master of the blueprints,
the one who kept the roof from caving.
But looking at the wreckage now,
through the grit and the soot,
it’s clear you were just a
squatter with a silver tongue.
So, mind the debris while
I sweep you out the door.
It’s funny, really—
you spent so much time
trying to convince me
I was a flickering candle
you had to protect,
yet here I am,
the whole damn fire,
and you’re just a pile
of soot I’m stepping over
to get to the trash.
Gridlocked.
The sudden pressure of force.
Lines swerve.
Breath held.
The heart’s voice in the throat.
Thump-thump
Thump-thump
Black volcanic glass
Scatters.
Oil leaks.
Pinned against the exhales.
Paralyzed.
The taste of copper and exhaust.
Empty.
Cloaked by the night.
No eyes in sight.
Fear consumes.
Time is a leak.
The vibration echoes—
Light bleeding in the dark.
Answer
Answer
But the words choke,
Frost anchoring the chords.
Fingerprints inches short.
I held my own hand.
Tears drain.
Life fades.
I am my own witness.
The magnetic pull drowns,
Drags me to the sweat-soaked cloth.
Pinned.
Paralysis hisses from the venom sting.
Jaw locks.
Muscles coil like snakes.
A fever wakes.
Blood roars in the ears.
Single strike.
Match lit.
Snuffed.
Smoke guarded by the fiery gates.
It pressurizes.
Volcanic ice cracks.
Molten lava surges.
Travels the inner core,
Tracing every vein.
The mouth unlocks.
A knife-blade shriek.
The sound recoils.
It stops.
It breaks.
Every nerve falls slack.
A puppet cut loose.
Brandi Lynn is a writer, artist, and literacy specialist (M.S.Ed.) currently pursuing a Doctorate in Metaphysical Science. Her work, ranging from poetry to children’s stories, explores the intersections of healing, neurodivergence, and the messy human experience. View her credentials and press features.
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