in younger years, when my bare skin touched the cold porcelain, i would dance like an underpaid bartender on a tight-rope, and return to pockets of heat like nuclear winters.
but now i cannot find the energy to stand in the shower, and
i'd liquidate any inheritance from my last names and deepest loves to transform my thumb and pointers, molded into the shape of a magnificent pistol, into steel-

my fingers as a gun do not disintegrate my limbic system like a homesick child. i'm not capable of accomplishing any act of substance without outside assistance, explaining why every lover has looked into my eyes and seen enough thunderstorms to run and hide as fast as they ******* can.

i'm not sure there is a finite amount of broken clocks to convince me that time does not stop for anyone, and that for every vaccine you bring to their doorstep, there are seven more dead friends just outside the reach of your eyelids.

we keep our hands busy. we shift positions. if we can hide from the cosmos, we can quit biting our fingernails long enough to win Nobel Prizes. if not, we are pushing boulders up mountains, disguised as grocery stores, office parties, football fields, television screens, and pieces of paper just like this one.

there will be many more Nobel Prizes and one day, my hands will turn to steel. the final chapter of thunderstorms always contains some sanguine symbol, a motif mirroring soothing rain.