An image flickers and jumps like a damaged film reel.

A moment repeats, stuttering and archaic.

It’s form is the acid swirling in a stomach cavity,

The altered state of the world around when nothing has materially changed.

It is trapped forever on a screen partially viewed in the periphery

but when I turn to face it directly it’s just static noise.

It holds me just out of reach but torturously close.

This border place is a schism.

It reaches back generations

and waits for those who are yet to touch the earth.

The imprint of the image fades

and the residue it has left on me can be wiped away

I feel it sink back through silt layers that close over it

Resting beneath

Neither retrievable nor disposable

Until next time.