Master Splinter

by Branson Neuman

What is that?
A sort of creeping…
It's a haunting,
Somber,
Feeling.
It's a creeping, crawling,
Teething,
closely down my spinal chord.
I keep feeling
nauseous feelings.
Like I've left the oven heating.
Paranoia.
Look behind you!
There is no one there beside you.
Fighting just to stay alive you
Walk from prison wall to wall.
Looking up in space
I'm pacing
Trying to run from ever facing,
All my crimes
Await with baited breath
they shake with hesitation.
Blatant anticipation.
Anxious
Huffing on your neck.
Puffing
Breathing getting labored.
What could that be in the sable?!
Mangy fur God painted pitch!
Praying that this case is just an isolated incident.
I think I've made it!
Fooled em.
Freedom!!!
But I still,
I STILL
feel teething at my spinal chord
the breathing,
Of a fiend
I called my friend.
I thought I beat the case?!
Authorities report his pleadings.
They tell me of his cries.
They preach to me his innocence.
But I was there,
we did the crime.
So how is he found ignorant?
A passerby.
A witness.
So how is he so innocent?!
Now I must do the time.
Worry not,
The only thing I fear is

STILL

that constant teething!
There it is!
That constant gnawing!
Constant chewing on my mind.
Constant chewing on my brain stem
Til the fluid rushes out!
Tears are spewing!
God in Heaven!
If by chance, you are always listening?!
Send a distant glistening glint,
For in the pitch it's fur is bristling.

In the cell,
Fur matted black.
Turn on the lights,
So I may see him!
Piercing through the April evening,
Seems my enemy's a

RAT