Brooke Forbes

I have this image of a black octopus, 

living in my chest, 

wrapping itself around my bodily organs. 

He’s alive in there,

I can feel him,

first around my lungs when I’m gasping for air, 

then around my heart, 

tentacles clamping, 

as I try to keep the blood pumping sans any black ink. 

I call him Inky, 

but he’s not a normal octopus,

he has the ability to disappear and reappear, at whim,

just when you think he’s gone,

he’s back,

again.

Inky and I are sometimes friends.

Sometimes we sit and think about life together. 

And then at other times he is wreaking havoc across my mind and soul,

tentacles reaching and wrapping, 

across muscle mass and bodily fluid,

clamping up my neck and into my brain,

creating pressure just behind my eyes.

When it gets too much I yell and scream,

“Inky, get out, you don’t belong there!”

“I’ll set you free in the ocean, Inky, so you can join your other Octopus friends!”

Inky winks, and slides from my brain and across to inside my chest again. 

He’s waiting, watching, ready to pounce.

I try wading into the ocean, feeling the soft cool waves lap around my fingers and toes. 

Together we bob, Inky and I, in unison with water, 

and I realise, 

slowly, 

with inky inside my rib cage,

and that feeling of smallness you feel when against a large landscape like an ocean,

the both of us are trapped,

that both of us may never be free,

but here we are, 

existing,

the best that we can be.