I Am Not Losing It and the Cicada Is Talking To Me

“If I could just figure out what the old woman wearing that salmon-pink snakeskin jacket wants from me”
—Headache, ‘The Beginning of the End’

I am not losing it and the cicada is talking to me.
I am in the desert or the swamp or my room
And this is not me unravelling, no way. I have been
Worse. You should have seen me when I was extremely malnourished.
I was extremely skinny. My friends sang to me
From the stairs asking me over and over, “Are you sure
Your thinking is not impaired? Are you falling again?” They are not
My friends. They trick or tease me only and I have been
One of those constant appeasers I am done with them.
The cicada: even she tries pulling many fast ones
On me but I am not to be fooled by nymphs. I have had
Many of them don’t you worry about that, young man. I am talking
To me in the mirror yes, I know—don’t you worry now. But I am not
To be unravelled tricked fooled at all by anyone: I can adequately
Provide for myself in this empty land.

No I am not happening, you spies, you violators, you gas-

Ah ha! The cicada again! In she comes to busy me again now.
She thinks she can slip into my mind

And heart easily—any part of my body. O and she is trying
To get into my breath—my lungs—this time; but little does she know

That I am sitting with my sword willing to remove all my organs
Before she can get to them, and right now, I am holding it steadily against my ribcage.