Atlas

I can only settle in a position that injures me. Lying prone, each voiced exhalation a soothing groan, I bring my hand underneath my body, bend it forwards and use my outer wrist to apply pressure to my tummy. I have fallen asleep this way only to be roused by an ache in my hand, and have not been able to pluck my guitar strings properly for three months until the tendons have healed. Despite this, I still do it; my fingers generally tremble, dexterity is never quite recovered, and it sometimes feels like I am re-learning to hold a pencil.

As a boy, I would fall asleep with my neck flat against the headboard. The rim of the headboard would be wedged between the topmost vertebrae, so that the globe of my head tilted back onto the wall. I think that some gradual realignment may have occurred over the years, where there are nerves and arteries, because I now walk with such imbalance.

The human flesh miasma encumbers
A pledge to increase policing numbers.
I cannot, cannot as one who lumbers
Abroad,
Aggregate avoirdupois of slumber's
Headboard
Bear; the sky and the oceans it umbers
Bear.