When you were little,
you never gazed
longingly off
in the distance—you only stared
at what was right
in front of you. Until,
eventually, you realized
literally everything
you could see
was really
made of something
smaller—loose locks,
wormy stocks,
and rusty pitted
barrels. But
now, even peering at
classic books
feels
claustrophobic—
all those panicky letters
bumping into
one another,
stampedes of words
collapsing
into shapes
made by the same mouth
and its
small monotonous voice.
And you're right
to feel nervous
because—
the one original
thought
you've got
left is:
what if
the Apocalypse
has already happened,
It just wasn't
a huge deal?
All those insignificant things—
tiny habits,
mute gestures,
the cute words in those books—
just took over
casually,
gradually, when
the colossal individuals
who made them
stopped looking.
