Tourette's Syndrome: The Wild Tiger Inside of Me

I feel the underside of your black paws

as you find your way through my dark and bloody veins

and as your strong yet wobbly newborn legs

suddenly feel the urge to jolt forward.

I feel how you teethe at my muscles

like the fresh meat of a gazelle,

and how you nudge your head,

forcefully against the inside of

my shoulders, my arms, my neck

until I move,

until I can’t stop.

I feel that desperation with which you wish

for the wind to play gently across your face

and for the metallic nighttime grasses

to sweep against the stripes of your fur.

I feel it every time your paws scrape and pound

against the sides of my body.

You are mine in a way,

wild one;

there is no latch

to open the cage that is my body,

no way for those black eyes that shine

like a darkened moon to know light.

Oh my wild little tiger,

at times you make standing in one place

like running barefoot through an empty parking lot

that stretches endlessly into the frigid night.

At times you make the cold air that sits in my throat

like the jagged edges of black rocks.

At times you

make me different.

Oh my wild little tiger,

my curse,

my almost

constant companion,

my unwanted teacher,

you are I are one yet

so often I feel that I am your

play toy and that one day you will

rip me to shreds

from the inside out.

More than anything

I want to scream out to you,

make you feel how much

it hurts, how much my muscles ache

after just a day of your relentless torture.

I want to make you know

that I sit on the other side,

swimming backstroke through this whir of noise

which one might call life.

I want to make you know how I want to hit back,

so, so hard.