I long to act, to lack
discernment, to take,
not earn it and not care
to explain, because
my bones are rigid
matrices, growing
brittle from empty
inertia. I wish I wrote
the way I used to before
professors slashed new
line breaks through
my stanzas for the sake
of aesthetics.

The voice my tongue
used to carry now resides
in my head, fragmented
but organized to the eye.
I can’t fix this.

I’m no longer looking
forward (to anything,
anymore) and for the past
twenty days I’ve spent
most of my time engaged
in staring contests
with tabletops and ceilings.

But I’m smiling at the cracks
in the sidewalks—the sidewalks
we share, where I’m too distracted
finding beauty in the destruction
and the life that grows from it
to ever notice your ghost haunting
or your shoulder brushing mine.

I am amused how we can still
inadvertently share the same path,
it's similar to the sickness I feel
towards sharing roads with cops.

I hope when
the end of the world
comes, I do too.