The Passivity That’s Killing Me

A poem

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I need to be clean to feel at ease
I need to feel at ease to eat anything
I need to eat literally anything at all,
or I’ll cease to be before the day is gone

I’m too passive to lash out at my sadness,
too beat down to fill my lungs up

The good stuff rises to the top, as always —
the cream of the crop, that top-dollar stuff;
go ahead and lick it all off —
surely, it tastes better than me

Hush now, there’s still time for goodbyes.
It takes a surprisingly long time
for a body to disappear behind
its lack of nutrition and loss of conviction for life

Plus, decomposition takes forever in the wintertime

And with everything so thick and slow,
it seems my mitochondria have all gone rogue —
chose to slow my cellular condition,
but can only cite implied permission,
so now I’m a slug stuck in muck,
all but unable to lift only my tongue up