Terror,
the scratch of thin,
chitinous,
way-too-many
legs
across porous drywall.

Breath
hissing,
coating my tongue
in whisper-light webs.

Panic,
skittering and skating
through my belly
and across my chest,
strumming taut muscles and
gnawing the back of my eyes.
My teeth rattle
in counterpoint.

Words,
some hyperbolic,
others too cutesy to cause any harm.
Anything but The Word,
with its six letters and
two syllables,
because six plus two
equals eight.

Frozen,
I am alone, envenomed,
cocooned in a shuddering,
leaking,
shivering,
sobbing
slab of quivering flesh.