moving under the force of gravity only

Some nights, I wake up with my hands around my own throat. Squeeze until the insides are breaking. Wind pipe, crushed. Under-eye skin cells, bursting. Oxygen deprivation. I wait until I feel my heart slow to a pause. Wait until my lungs ache as empty as me. I am lack of will. My motivation clots somewhere in between want and need and never quite flows through to raison d’être. I don’t really know how to explain to you what it’s like. It’s maybe like the way that my eyes can’t focus through early morning haze. It’s kind of like trying to reach something just past your fingertips. It’s like loving the ocean but only knowing how to sink. Am I getting close? Like the way the blood feels as my vision swims. It’s like the way the air would feel underneath me, as body rushes to concrete. Ballistic test of me. And I thought I had this figured out. It’s like how the first line rhymes with I don’t want to. And this last one rhymes with breathe.