'Guilt' by Jay Dixon

It starts in the intestines.

Thick and dark and heavy as molten tar.

It oozes, slowly, through the intestinal lumen,

Drooling over every ciliated epithelial cell

And paralysing them in its glutinous matrix.

When the intestines are filled,

It pushes into the stomach.

Here it is compressed into an even denser, even stickier,

Resin-like substance,

Before it rises into the oesophagus.

At the epiglottis, it runs

Slowly, slowly,

Down the trachea

And drizzles into the bottom of the lungs,

Turning every alveolar sac

Into a clotted balloon of paste.

When the lungs are filled

It overflows into the oral, then nasal, cavities

And, from there, drains into the sinus.

When the sinus is filled

It leaks into the skull

And encases the brain in a cloying layer of glue.

It doesn’t stop there.

When the skull is filled

It seeps from every mucous membrane:

From the eyes, the nose, the mouth,

The vulva and the anus

And through every pore in the skin,

Until the whole body is covered

And you are like a fly, trapped in amber.

You can struggle all you like.

You can scream for help.

You can scratch your head until it bleeds.

But there’s no escape.

All Rights. Jay Dixon.