Friday, 6 September 2013

Anatomy of a Tic


It is not an itch you have to scratch, it is a surge of power that begins in the centre of your back between your shoulder blades, and spreads up into neck and arms carrying with it a flexing jerk of the muscles, the force of which jars backbones and traps nerves.

It fires downwards. When it reaches the waist, the body is forced to bend over double, a worsening cramp that in severe instances causes the legs to flex and the toes to curl, stretching out sideways to the maximum point of muscular satisfaction is reached, right on the point of pain.

Sometimes the voice cries out as the back arches back up, sometimes the body bounces back with a spring and the face cranes to the ceiling, neck wrenched back and the mouth makes wolf cries full of abuse and swears.

This is what the stress does.

One day, maybe very soon, I'll get in a whole lot of trouble over this. I yell what's on my wind; if someone has upset me, I will hurl abuse about them into the void. Whatever is on my mind becomes vocalised and spat out like phlegmy rocks of hatred, embedded with clean as crystal nails dipped in toxin. Sometimes I bounce back so high I leap into the air like an electrocuted slinky, spine unravelling from extreme compression.

Other times my arms see saw through the air like I'm beating an invisible pair of soldier boy side drum, and my neck jerks so violently I keep trapping nerves in my shoulder. This isn't science fiction. This isn't fantasy.

This is a body that is outwardly normal. Providing you are looking at a short exposure photograph of it. For when it moves, it is out of this world.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 06.09.13

No comments:

Post a Comment