Wednesday, December 30, 2015

SLACK

It's official—nothing
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,

and wondering the
whole time—whether 
it just can't be done? Or worse,

why?
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
of the free, ordinary air 

which seems
to lie
around everywhere,

so stupid
and dispassionately—outside
of yourself.