Flashbacks.

Sting you through the chest. Jar running thoughts.
Reach in like lightning, plunging a green hand
Into your heart, and squeezing tight -
Life-stopping, heart-wrenching,
Bulging between finger - a nightmare,
Stifling panic in a back room - in a black room.
Your mouth trapped behind an irrevocable, greasy paw.
Suffocating.

The paw grows nails, the nails gleam, lipstick red.
she moves across the room, you feel her presence. . .
She leaves, the darkness deepens.

Pulses race through tubes,
Out into the world in multi-colors.
Her green grip tightens around your soul -
Fireworks gouge your eyes from inside.
Ready to burst, helpless, breathless.

Familiar hands clutch a glowing breast.
You fall back to earth
back to where you were.
It all happens so fast.
In a flash, like lightning.