(digging for cheese)

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some days,
most without even trying,
i take the easy way out:

i get stuck in my thoughts
and spin out of control
not even paying attention

and soon i’m on my knees in the kitchen
hunched over
trying to differentiate between months-old droppings
and fragments of plastic cheese
from the bag of Tex-Mex i just dropped on the floor

because i would rather simply be
trying to do nothing at all just
laying on the couch but
thinking,
dreaming,
praying of being somewhere else,
anywhere,
in another dimension, off there somewhere
where exists what could have happened –

debt-free with disposable monies
from which every meal is via Uber Eats;

famous for my writing
or anything,
in addition to
a humbling degree of modesty;

a sibling, a friend
who isn’t female
who is interesting
and not embarrassing
who will talk to me first without me initiating –

but didn’t
because it’s in my nature in this reality’s canon
to be cravenly.

i just haven’t accepted that yet.
not completely.
so much has changed since i was twenty
and so little, too:
trying to be gracious instead of trying
not to drop garnish
because i’m lost in the curves of
someone else’s yoga pants.
where does life fit into this equation?

there’s going to come a time
when i do more harm for myself than good
living in my delusions,
what could,
instead of what should.

//wd 2.13.2024

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