How I wish not to consume myself with rituals of my own creation,

not to feel the grinding intricacies of my tiring mind

scream and tense, like contorted boughs, from my fingertips

I pushed my head against the glass,

and felt it rattle in its frame.

How, I wondered, would it feel,

should it suddenly give way?

You are the cause and the cure,

the beat and the tear,

the tug on the strings

which sting