The Mass

You were a child when you first felt it The mass hiding inside you Its silent, fibrous bulk within Pressing itself into delicate tissues And so you bore its weight While: Your bones twisted around it You ate until you retched It grew harder to breathe The string in your back frayed You put a good face on it Fear cradled your soul in its palm In the hours that bracket sleep The doctors couldn’t find the mass Their machines turned up nothing But you knew it was there You could feel it shifting And so you gathered yourself each day And carried the mass in silence The anchor inside the quiet stoic The spindle of strength that guides the unwinding The heart of your truest self The mass will abide inside you always And will sink you by heartbeats in the end