workings of my machine

As of late, possibly three weeks or longer, I have noticed a heightened sense of awareness of my surroundings. Often I am seeing signs and symbols in my peripheral vision including lights that twinkle white and intermittent splashes of rustic yellows and sour reds. Stars fall from the night sky and those surrounding me stare too, but cannot see what and where I explain. I glance in the direction of a well drawn shadow, even turn my head, only to find nothing and no one present. Yet I am seeing something with my naked eyes which often blur and twitch but certain not to tear.

My feeling of touch has become powerful as warmth is felt, sometimes the warmth of another person before one, other than me, enters the room. I visualize smells of a finished product prior to cooking it and as I smell the spice, I grab for water that seems not to quench my growing thirst. Hunger pains are no longer present but I feel pains of a different nature, still internal, but nauseating to the core. Colors blend before me and I sit quiet trying to figure out what I have been witness to and smelling wrong.

I answer before my name is called and begin a project before I am asked realizing that some things are very different and continue at a steady pace to throw me off balance, steal words from my thoughts and alter my course of doing. Noises become loud and still I cannot hear pitch well enough to complete a sentence that has been sitting in queue, at the tip of my tongue for minutes or less.

I watch as my stomach rises to a rumble that even stirs my sleeping dog and I wonder why the itching, fierce and all consuming, bleeds my skin as I scratch with nails cleaned and bitten knowing my nerves crave rest and my body lay exhausted from self.