Will power is of course, breakable,
has been broken, in everyone, everything.
But it always comes back to scratch at the screen door,
a dark red shape in its mouth,
brought back from abandon.
Look at what it’s up against:
If death builds a sword ever more abrupt, flashing, invisible,
then what kind of shield do you expect us to build?
There’s a black hallway we’re all dipping into and out of,
all our souls slamming doors like in Scooby Doo.
And he doesn’t ever get us.
We just leave parts behind the doors
that we sometimes stumble back on again
if we happen to try the same door.
And eventually? Enough gets left behind.
Heaven? Sure there’s still Heaven.
It’s like this:
a fish leaps out of the water
and onto some grass by the roadside.
He can move so fast out there,
without water crushing his spine.
It’s like discovering he’s a guitar string,
meant to go faster than he’d realized—
all the gut he is sweetening
beyond reason into a note
as his body finds its place
in the silver flash that shuts out his mind,
out of air. There’s more air now
than he even knows what to do with—
he melts in it like ice cream in a cone.
This isn’t helping, I can tell.
Take this pill instead.
Somebody guessed just what life was like,
and then made a pill for it.
It’s my favorite—vanilla I think.
Don’t you worry, all that scared old sweat
will be washed away with white new sweat.
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