I sit in a too-soft chair
Rocking my knees unconsciously
Letting time erode my stomach
Passing in digital lines
One and one and one and seven
Backwards eight-one eleven
Or an extra one thousand
Added to 119

Metal machines churn hot air
Heating the sleeping bodies of children
Scattered in this room among me
Water filters
Bubbly and loud
Music to the motion of the endless turning
As blades spin and hook air
In a ballet
In a floating dance that hurts my eyes

March never has seemed suitable to me
Like a dead skin
A dead aunt
Lost and forgotten as a casualty of time
Not winter
Not spring
Just that feeling of dentists film between your teeth
Or two-day old oatmeal on the counter

My chest hurts
Not like yesterday
When I felt enveloped
Stamped and mailed through sadness
Delivered into physical pain as my feet met concrete
The cold winter air blotching my skin in pink inkiness
Wrapping thin silver cords around my lungs
And tightening

When I finally collapsed in front of my window
Small white flecks of snow fell down
Fighting my stubborn resolve to anger

But now it's different
His name is Fear
And he is choking my mind with bleakness
All the sudden my ring feels too big
But my tongue is so swollen
I might drown
I might fall over until my spirit shrivels
Like all the teabags I suck dry
Like all my hope for this country

This is wrong
I never write like this
So blunt
All ugly and misunderstood
Folded in an abnormal shape of context
Fit tightly in a Christmas box
Dressed in comical attire

I hate beauty for taking my place
I hate love for needing sleep
I hate safety for leaving me here
I hate confusion for caring so much

I hate misfortune for creating all this
On accident

I hate myself
But there doesn't need to be a reason
Because this is enough