I felt it first, a copper taste,
A twitch beneath the gum, a waste
Of breath—I spoke, but words were wrong,
Too thick, too slow, too far, too long.

It came, they said, from foreign seas,
A parasite that rides the breeze—
Invisible, it crept inside
And made my hollow mouth its bride.

It found my tongue, and kissed it raw,
With needle legs and chitin jaw,
It sucked the roots, it drank the red,
Then curled around the nerves instead.

Now when I speak, it's not just me—
It flickers syllables with glee,
My voice half-mine, the rest a hiss,
That tastes like blood and smells like fish.

It knows my thoughts. It shifts my tone.
It dreams inside my jawbone throne.
My teeth obey. My lips recite
What it rehearses late at night.

I tried to scream, I bit, I begged—
But now we are conjoined, two-legged.
It fused its nerves with mine so tight,
We blur like ink in water, right?

The doctors weep. The mirrors lie.
My tongue still grins when I deny.
A guest beneath my tongue, well-fed—
And I’m the one who speaks the dead.