the bystander effect
you can try your very best to be good -
straight-laced, straight-faced, not a slyly dogeared
corner in sight; compelling the angles
until they’re perpendicular. perfect.
and go through it all with a fine-toothed comb.
but it’s not the doing. it never was.
i don’t have the wall space to count the ways
i could do without being. a thousand
graces sit at the bottom of empty
glasses nursed by crooked hands. the being
sees when the carafe is miles away.
being is a state of refusal to
be the wraithlike product of all the skins
you’ve ever shed. being speaks with its feet.
21.04.2022
