Ineptitude.

It’s me against

The unbending pillars

Of an E spine,

A black lock,

An upper arm.

Crackling and jerky, stop and start palaver,

potential energy, kinetic energy, potential energy.

Tattooing some omnipresent smile in my eyes

When natural intensity is a slow death.

Filling up the time braiding fingers and modeling for all the invisible cameras in the air,

Calculating every limb down to the bone.

I’m procrastinating self-hatred, smashing it into the deadline

Eluding inevitable, farcical turning points

Because blueberries can never grow in an orchard.

Adult intervention is sacred, and two is the loneliest number.

Petitioning to participate just so the shock of spectatorship won’t make me reach out my

Roughed up hands

To draw black lines in the sand.

Cotton in the ears, bed on the brain.