he's on the news again
all anyone talks about is
how they wish everyone would stop talking about him

i try switching off the radio, the newsfeed, the idle coworker chitchat
dig down to that layer of earth somewhere safe from winter bite but not quite mantle heat
and i bury my head in that goldilocks soil

my mom always said that if you ignore bullies
they go away so my ostrich head incubates
among the worms until i feel like maybe
it's spring and i start to hatch and send
my shoots up toward the sun but
when i wake up everything is
shadow because
he took my silence as invitation and grew and grew and grew
and now there's no room left
not even to breathe