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.