Cotard’s Syndrome
“Jeanie was well oriented for time, place and person…
as for being dead or alive, she was all at sea.”
— Paul Broks, Neuropsychologist
I was sitting in a usual chair, my lips
dry as dust
I was aware of my tongue,
limp between my teeth
I swallowed water
felt it slosh inside my chest like a hose
dumped over a bucket of nothing
My organs sagged out of place,
the rest of me
on the ghost feed
In time
my mouth closed into a scar
and soon I didn’t have a face
to speak out of
my limbs
a halo of shadows
orbiting my voice
I sense death waiting: a driver
with a sign at the airport
I’m inside the terminal
somewhere counting backwards
I am basically air
I flush through rooms like a draft
made by someone else
opening and closing a door
