i keep two buttons in either pockets
they’re part of my usual pocket cluster, wallet phone keys headphones matches
both hands in my pocket now, i run my finger along the ridge of the left button on the hard days
i roll the bridge between both buttons before sneaking out back and pressing the right button
but like all psychoactivities, relative direction, cardinal hand eye, the right button looks identical to the left and I left them both on the table in between tobacco pouches and empty beer bottles
things that press the left button: ominous psychosis, soma mania, fire flushes from ******* not listening, an empty checking balance, an empty emotional balance, an emptiness
things that press the right button: herbal breath in the nice chair, glassy eyes and extra papers, a quiet hour in surround sound
I stare at the left button while my dad calls and hover over it, pausing mid drag to weigh the consequences, weighing the empty balance, feeling an overdrawn surcharge to my soul, taxed in tension, fumbling headphones
the left button sometimes makes me yell, dissociative silence or telling strangers to go **** themselves because I can’t afford the time for anything else
It’s usually the left button I smash against the wall, slaughtered, obliterated, my friends hand me broken batteries and shattered screens and say things like, “press the right button, stop pressing mine”
things that press the right button: not me, usually.
things that press the left button: the left button presses the left button, leaving me with a locked right button, pressed permanently and I fidget with a flathead trying to pop that ****** back out
why can’t I hit the right button?
why am I stuck with the left button, ad infinitum, added insidium, snarling and suffocated, shaking it out in the center of my bed
it might be easier if they left me in a blue gown, *** exposed, *** laid down, pressing that ******* button by the hospital bed, pressing that ******* button like I know how in the coward’s way out
irregardless of what button I press, or what gets pressed, or what’s pressing me and pressing against me, they find their way back into my pocket cluster
pockets with my hands, fingers that get skinnier until my fingers are thin lines or circles or buttons themselves and I have nothing left to do but give them to you and have you press every button, drugless and dampened
things that press the right button: you when I need you to
and when you press it, the left button and the right button are one in the same
they are you and you can withstand being pressed or being there to be pressed
out of my hands and a little lighter
