Everyone gets a turn at tag, but if you are
small, slow, as I was, you take little short bursts
and catch no one back, or run as a lottery of
‘maybe i just need to try hard’, only to be cut
short towards another child close, and again
failing. Recess ends unsatisfied and alone. I
surrendered my chance at proving myself to
attention that I rarely get, that was given freely
– squandered welfare, which leads to even less
faith in being able, which is like thinking when
short of breath, and likely led to it.
Sometimes, often after weeks or a month of
long work, my breath becomes shallow, my
lungs a small lipped jug that I can’t breathe to
the bottom of. Uncomfortably I stretch into the
tightness to scratch at the bottom. In bed I’ll lie
there thinking, becoming like in salt water,
supported by the bed, which becomes my torso.
I grab at thoughts as they whisper past and
through.
Always the darkness of the room is poor,
light pollutes all night: street lamps, alarms, I
am awake to dimness, in a still lake that grows
mold, and has the most evil bugs flying off. I
plunge my hands in, flailing about, touched by
the coolness of water slipping around my fingers
that are drawn out full of disease, which I then
put in my mouth
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