Zugzwang in chess means the compulsion to move, means 
You must move but all moves are losing moves. Move 
X and it leads to mate. Y and you lose your queen. And 
When I decided not to move, not to respond to the 
Violence of being spoken to or touched, I lay  
Unblinking on my sofa while the paramedics  
Tapped my shoulder repeatedly, as if they could  
See I was at home but wouldn’t come to the door. I  
Remained like that in the ambulance, at the ER, my  
Quiet really a form of panic, as in the movie where the 
Patients shake so fast it appears to be a stillness,  
Or like being deep underwater, or how the mating 
Net slowly turns a King to stone. This was my zugzwang:  
My mind was crumbling, a place I could no longer 
Live inside, but outside of it was a world waiting to 
Kill me. I believed I lay on the cliff-edge of a hell built 
Just for me and that Satan would take me if I moved an 
Inch. Has it taken me years to write this because I know   
How ridiculous it all sounds, how self-mythologizing,  
Grandiose to the point of comedy? Or do I  
Fear that writing it down might bring it all back, the 
Echo of that time still bouncing through me? A  
Day later, I inched back to consciousness in the 
Concrete room of a psych ward, watched the world re- 
Built around me. I try hard to believe in this world still.  
And then my hand reaches out and hunts a stitch.