You are not okay.

It was going along.
You were keeping apace.
It was in English.
It was in your province.

In one sharp second.
Words become odd numbers.
A jumble, betwixt, afoul.
You're so far afield
You can't understand what you can't understand.

Drowning doesn't look like drowning.
The lapping calm, whimpering waters.
There's no gasp, no flail, no fanfare.
That is what they say, and you believe them now.
After today, you'd believe anything.

So what that something isn't right?
It's not just a tangle or amiss.
Every last morsel is  wrong.
To fashion a query.
Would take another brain.
One that was still tethered.
One born brighter ablaze.

Look normal.
You say this to you.
That which is light as air, that which is familiar old clothes.
And it works - for a while.

Is it the shame of the words?
Or that of not understanding?
Is it something else?
That makes your skin itch and crawl.
That flits around you, buzzy old fly.
Lazy and large, persistent and dumb.
Useless but living.

You should have stopped the bus!
Old with rust the clanging mess of ricket and metal.
Barreling down, reckless  and sure.
But it's so late that there's no use checking the time.

You are with just you.
Addled and splintered such as you are
There's nobody left to ask, nobody to decode.

You summon your pieces.
Buttressed, still tall.
You remember a thread of competence so bold.
That technicolor isn't nearly enough of a word.
You want to fix this.
But even this version of you can't make it so.




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