With every tickle

With every tickle

There is fear

Each painful pang

Every fresh bruise

With no recollection

Of its cause

The racing heart’s

Erratic arrhythmia

Beats more forcefully

Anxiously attached

To mortality

Fear is a virus

Worming its way

Into every cell

Insurrectionists

Fifth columnists

Experts in sabotage

Turning self

Against self

With little need

Of a fourth estate

To indulge in fakery

The dry cough

In a swollen throat

Is real enough

Worn bellows

Sag

With every fresh

Convulsion

A fragile proof

Of life

It is no illusion

There will be occlusion

Perhaps

Even the banality

Of a conclusion