Sitting Situations
You mustn’t show weakness
and you’ve got to have a certain shade about you.
But sometimes I feel like the thin led
of a mechanical pencil that breaks
when sitting, writing a letter
to the one you love
Rather than just another love letter.
You mustn’t show weakness
and you’ve got to make a list.
While sitting, think of all the
things you can load
in a car without any people.
This is the way things stand now:
If I pull out the stopper
after pampering myself in the bath,
I’m afraid that all of the city, and with it the whole world,
will drain out into the huge darkness.
I’m stranded on some ocean-locked island
No strength to swim yet,
so I must work and build muscle.
In the daytime I lay traps for my memories
and at night I wait while sitting
in the Hawaiian palm trees of my sheets,
turning curse into blessing and blessing into curse.
And don’t ever show weakness.
Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself
without anyone noticing. I’m like an ambulance
on two legs, hauling the patient sitting
inside me to the emergency room
with the wailing of cry of a siren,
and people think it’s ordinary speech.
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