When I try to take a breath, it refuses.

Protests.

Holds me down.

“A reminder”, it whispers;

grasps at my heart with long, curled fingers

and whispers mean things to it as it tugs it downwards.

Downwards towards my stomach, 

where it sits like a bag of rocks;

and the creature takes my heart’s place in my chest.

Baddump. Baddump. Baddump.

What would normally be the sound of my heart beating, 

pumping to circulate life through my body,

is now a tight, clenched fist

banging against the hollowness of my sternum.

“A reminder.”

Every so often,

my heart will shift in its new home further south.

My stomach churns with it,

and the fist taking its place in my chest uncurls its fingers.

Or, maybe they’re too long to be fingers.

Unsettlingly long. 

The hand unclenches from its fist

and waggles its spindly not-fingers, 

painfully stretching the cavity of its stolen home.

It’s more than five fingers,

I realize as a few extend into the bottom part of my throat,

clogging the airway. 

It isn’t just one creature.

How many fists are there, 

squeezed into the space where my heart should be?

How many things have I done to warrant each one’s appearance?

Baddump, baddump, baddump.

A new one is knocking at my chest.

Fingers stretch down through my stomach,

inserting themselves where they don’t belong,

obstructing.

Until they reach my heart,

in the deep caverns of my stomach that they’ve exiled it to.

They squeeze.

Baddump.

They’re clawing at it, and it hurts.

Baddump.

In my chest, more fists clench and unclench.

Baddump. Baddump. Baddump.

They’re pounding against the inside of my chest now, hard and loud.

Baddump, baddump, baddump.

They seem comfy here, content to keep reminding me.

Baddump.

I’ll keep it a secret.