tongues raze grief and anxiety do strange things to the brain. you imagine a lawn littered with traps meant to snap the back of a creature with a shelf life so short, it must be your penance to know you're destined to outlast everything you dare to care for. you scan the sky for looming threats. a lull becomes a kind of cumulative death. each falling leaf a bird of prey. you wake to skin slick with sweat too thick to be yours. units of time are lost to you. no amount of squinting or begging the cruelest corners of night for clemency will bring them back. everything you aren't ready to let go of gnaws at the back of your mind until you can taste the teeth marks just by closing your eyes. the human tongue can stretch farther than you'd think when your life is on the line. you should see the lengths i'll go to with mine. 221027 what's it to you? who go blather from