wears your body
down like
keeping
still and holding your
breath, in an increasingly
elaborate pantomime of death,
while simultaneously chastising
yourself
for not growing
celestial
wings in the meantime,
yourself
for not growing
celestial
wings in the meantime,
and wondering the
whole time—whether
it just can't be done? Or worse,
why?
it just isn't happening
it just isn't happening
quickly enough
to counteract
this annoying and
incessant little compulsion
you seem to have developed—to keep
pinching and
hoarding and furtively
sniffing up—
little secret doses
little secret doses
of the free, ordinary air
which seems
to lie
around everywhere,
so stupid
and dispassionately—outside
of yourself.