PENDULUM

You have to pause sometimes. Because laughter’s like stories on alcohol-light and breezy. Never mind if it’s all lies, you still like doing it. Flashing your teeth unexpectedly at people who try to like you and sometimes do.

It crashes. It went way too far.

Deep beneath is a pool,

Blue-green under the carpets of resonating sunshine.

Me, I lie down and watch the crawling lights swing me into trauma.

Drawing close is a shapeless foe,

Everybody is.

I look around at the crowding darkness. Just once?

She kneels to offer a piece of clothing.

I shudder my shoulders as I retch into it; laughing to tears, retching into nausea.

There’s an end and a start. An end again.

Then it all falls.

I hate, hate, HATE Impermanence.

It doesn’t count as poetry but I’m not sure I can write any anymore.