had told my therapist
about the chilling images
spontaneously blooming
in my waking brain,
like I’m trying to scare myself,
the image trying to be the whole
jumping-out-of-the-closet gestalt.
I had assumed
gore was intended to draw revulsion–
revulsion bound to all negative.
Until today,
the pictures became more
than the puzzle.

In real life:
blood clot headed for my brain
but gets caught in my eyeball.
I can see it floating.
It is deoxygenated maroon,
shaped like a large ant or
stinging, flying insect.

It is inanimate but
maybe wasn’t always.
There, a string,
a clot,
an antenna? on one end
waving in the liquid currents as it floats.
I can’t know if it is bad that it is in my eye
(and frightening to see,
let alone what that forebodes
for the health of my eye),
or if it is good
my eye filtered it out of my brain
and saved me from the stroke
I might have had today.

October 28, 2019.