Art by Maria Quartel

Stress is a bright yellow bitter virus and it’s seeping itself into my veins.

It’s hot and comes with a warning label.

Starting as a chaos of the mind, inhabiting itself in spirit and flooding.

Organs twist then turn, shrivel then punch. 

From written word between brain crevices, its power makes it physical.

Until.

Until the world stops spinning and the days become pools and the big red button is a click of a finger.

Like a friend, stress will invite you out for coffee.

Like a lover, it’ll embrace your inner thigh.

And then it is you and you are it and you are stress.

Once, I pressed the fast forward button on a TV remote and it stood stuck. 

And I think I became that remote.

To live was to push was to move was to balance.

Until.

Until I toppled.

And the battery acid contents of a stress-filled life bled into everything and all things.

My breath is red.