Inside Her Nervous Breakdown

Is as fragile and transparent
as broken eggshell
held up to candle flame.
Yet, it holds her weight, perfectly,
as she daily climbs its wailing walls.
With a spinning weathercock
inside her twisting cranium
banging brashly against
the battered old hamster wheel
speeding everywhere and nowhere
at exactly the same time.
Heart, a nut and bolt,
forever tightening with the tension.
Skinless and taut as bowstrings,
her nerves and emotions
twang and pang
like whip cracks from a sadist.
Nowhere to hide when un-vocal,
masks are useless in solitude.
She gripes and claws her way
through mirrored memories,
seeking a calm and logic never there.
Conscience a dizzying merry-go-round,
un-moralled from the safety bar,
she trapezes wildly
the sickening vertigo of lost chances.
Blind to the bold EXIT door,
she fumbles and stumbles
in the wrong direction from ESCAPE.

© Paul Tristram 2016