Inner Chamber,  2021

I was blowing a large balloon for my friend’s party,

As I wrap my lips around the rubber edge of the balloon,

slip the circular edge in between my inner lips and teeth,

secure them by pushing the tip of my tongue slightly into the opening. 

I taste the bitterness of the rubber surface.

I tighten my lips to start the inflation process to this closed rubber sphere;

to pressurize it with the air inside of my body.

My head swells as I push the air out of my lung,


through my trachea, my larynx, my mouth, through the neck of the ballon, into its growing gut. 

I get dizzy,

it takes a lot of pressure to keep the air pressurized inside of a stretched rubber.

The balloon grows on, blocking my view,

dangling out of my mouth,

I would sometimes fall into temporal hypoxia.

For a brief second,

I see the world through the translucent, glowing, blurring, dizzying, dimming, diffusing, simplifying, mono-toning, inflating surface of the balloon.

Shadows of simply shaped monsters creep in and out of my fog-blocked sight…“