twister

every exhale riles up a twister in my stomach
thoughts scrape against my abdomen like
the leaves that get carried upward and slammed back down again
aches like the remnants of a tumble down to the pavement that welcomes bloodied knees

i remember learning that the gut holds ninety percent of the serotonin in the body
that the movement down below were my thoughts swimming and
surfacing in stomach bile that comes up when nobody is home

that the braiding of my intestines was just the worry that i'd chosen to bottle
and that the bidirectional communication would only continue to get stuck in a feedback loop
if i did not fix what was causing the loop in the first place

but it is not of my nature not to worry
it is engrained in every kink and knot of my small intestine
in the burns to my oesophagus that make it hard to talk
in the stinging cuts on my lips that return to the spot between my teeth
in the scars on my knuckles
everywhere