‘What arrives first is what remains.’
It doesn’t move unless I do.
I move a lot.
The weight atop my head makes my neck shake when my thoughts get too loud. They get too loud too often. Curling in on myself helps relieve the tension along my spine—bright, tingling tension that makes it hurt to move.
I have to move anyway. I have to expose myself. Every part of me.
The shirt comes up over my ribs, showing exactly what I’ve given. The snake slides through my hair, my thoughts, my weight, and takes that, too.
It never asked me to give. Just as it never asked me to carry it.
I roll my neck. The snake hisses as it holds tight. I don’t try to dislodge it—only the discomfort that comes with it.
It does not care for explanations.
At first, I thought it was correcting me.
Each time my thoughts turned sharp, it tightened—just enough to be noticed. Just enough to feel like consequence. I softened where I could. Smoothed the edges. Chose better words, even when they stayed inside me. Tried to keep everything gentle, manageable, good.
It didn’t loosen.
It held what I gave it, not what I meant. Not what I corrected. Only what passed through me first—unfiltered, immediate, alive enough to register. The rest slipped past it. Unkept.
I had mistaken it for something that judged me.
It doesn’t choose. It doesn’t weigh. It keeps.
I am the one who keeps giving it something to hold.
The smooth scales feel slick against my skin. It wraps through my long hair, tangling with each turn and twist. I want to recoil—to draw away, shake it off, scream.
I’ve done that before.
The snake tightened until my vision blurred, my breath shortened. Panic filled the space where thought used to be.
I learned to limit my movements after that. As much as I could. Still, as time passes, I do not improve. My arms reach for my drink more slowly than they need to. My head turns like my vertebrae might disconnect at any moment.
I fear it might.
The snake doesn’t often travel. When it does, I assume it’s hungry. Why else would it circle me like prey?
Yet it doesn’t strike.
It doesn’t press against my throat.
It stays near me.
The unease doesn’t settle. It doesn’t know how to. It lives in the same space as everything else.
The snake moves again—over my arms, ribs, back to my head.
I watch it more closely when it moves. Not the shape of it—the direction.
I test it, once. Not with movement—but with thought. Something small. Quick. Unkind—before I can stop it.
It shifts immediately. Not tighter. Not looser.
Just there.
I had been waiting for it to be wrong. To take something I didn’t mean. To hold onto something I had already let go.
But that’s not what it does.
It keeps what arrives first.
It has never once mistaken me.
