Living Limbo

When your limbo stick drops
just how low will you go?
Your life-line slowly sinking
with each back-bending breath
stolen by an invisible
constrictor coiling its prey,
knotting a lung-leash
with pulsating pain.
Its tourniquet twists,
crushes as it wraps around
to arc its transparent gaze
with a fixed final warning…

Your helpless stare
pleads into the void,
clenching hands grapple
for an ally, hoping their grip
will end the suction-cupped gulps
that fight denied deflation –

a steady suffocation.

Reluctant white flags
coat your pupils,
mind gravity flees.
Submit to anesthetic eyelids
carrying the lungs’ weights
and trembling hands balancing
a feebly fueled body
arched towards the floor.

Lower and lower the limbo stick falls

2012