Work snips years
it abducts me
from living

and the drinks are heavy
after
in my liver

my tenuous body
if I could live
in a less-consumed way

outside
with the grass
not overgrowing

my head
in the mountains
with a beach-blue

overlook
and while I’m
fantasizing

I want a bug force
field to keep
the pests away

I want to glide
over the landscape
a less-ambitious Magneto

breathing in
high-altitude sea breeze
until the stress is gone

and I deflate
into the ocean
though I don’t know

how to swim
see
even my daydreams

end with darkness

(originally published in The Wise Owl, Spring 2023)