I sit in a chair that melts to nothing beneath me. I close my eyes because she says I can and I can't stand to look at her face. We'll peel back your brain in slices, if you will— I won't. Don't speak to me in metaphors, I beg. Right. Just tell me, then a list. I'm afraid to speak to swallow, to breathe. I begin anyway. Things that crawl or creep or hiss. Especially things that slither, pinch or sting. She slices the layer. It slides from my head wet and sticky. She sets it aside. They're just evolutionary fears, she explains. The dark. The unidentified. The unknown. Quite normal. On