there's a certain stiffness when I turn my neck not the kind I'm used to, a different sense of rubber bands rubbing against sharp corners, elastic stretched too tight and knotted up.
when I reach up there's a small blossom of pain against my fingertips, a certain swelling that isn't supposed to be there, that I check with both hands against the right side.
fear settles low inside my chest, beating moths against a rib cage, circling a flame that sputters, anxious, but never manages to go out, never manages to burn brightly.
endless high-pitched echoes stretch ahead one beep after another, bouncing around my head as I struggle to hold my breath, to never move, magnetic resonance drawing me back there again.