Down is there under the mask.

In the flesh itself.

Broiling with fever just underneath.

It is a pressure.

A slowly increasing a downward force.

Feeling bones crunching and snapping.

It is a beat of the heart.

Agonizingly drawn out and scrutinized.

Grasping for purchase where there is none.

Pulsing, gulping and sputtering on.

It is the mirror of memory.

All the second guessing and reassessing.

Spinning alternate fates.

Musing on impossible realities.

Wishing to live in a dream instead of life.

Saddened by the depths of dejection.

Wilderness-bound, cold and wandering.

Screaming only where no one can hear.