the dying empire and the broken skin.

i don't want to live like this, but i have no choice, unless, i have to live in what is. if the empire is dying i have to live in the dying empire. if my skin is thin and failing i have to somehow live in my dying skin. i can hope for regeneration, i have no choice. i must somehow live, despite the corrosion and corruption of the empire, and within, as it happens, in my own skin. 
i don't want to write like this. it's as if i have an alter who writes for me as i dither and forget.
i would be matter of fact. now it's me again. 
the fact of the matter is i'm lucky and i know it. people are being poisoned and bombed and locked up. 
now it's me again. 
about this time last year my skin started to fail. the water's calmer but i'm afraid to go in. this time last year the breakdown begins. it's not natural, to be afraid of the water. maybe my summer is over. maybe i will have this affliction for life. it's natural so why do i fear. i fear becoming an invalid again. by winter i was in bed and i couldn't even walk the dogs.  
it's hard to contain it all, you can't, you can't even record it all, it's passing before our eyes, and we have to go on acting as if whatever happens it's background to our lives, it's normal, these things, they're cyclical, widening gyre, not natural, this normal, passing before our lives. it's me now it's me again, hi, yes, it's only me. he is in the background, i think. 
i look at mister, he walks behind me, considering, he doesn't know, but he feels it. to feel but not know. well i know too much and feel too much. to feel is to know without the specifics.
i think of my sister's loser bunny, the actual bunny, sum of his parts, and the film, losing his parts with each step, and walking on somehow miraculously, until, what was left? his torso, his head? i have to watch it again, with my own story in body, in mind. i know i'll cry. i'm going to write her and ask, can loser bunny still be seen, and what was left in the end. 
this isn't me. it's a mighty dying beast, thrashing around in blood and excrement. not me, i'm just trying to live in my own skin. we see the show, the reality tv, but we don't see the war and the graphic nature of the beast dying. it's not for the more sensitive viewer. 
i guess i can live with a little breakdown in my skin, little choice- i just don't want to be an invalid again.
the dying empire and the broken skin.