What can I do?

There is a certain pattern to the doing,
and to the undoing: from a frown to

understanding to outrage to action or
maybe from analysis to angst to inaction —

both trajectories converging in a wave
of helplessness like insipid rain hitting

a high wall and trickling slowly, inevitably
down to the ground. I think my mind

is a medieval catacomb, niche after
niche filled with things dead or in a

considered afterlife. All feeling is painted
artifice. Shouldn’t real grief break you?

Shouldn’t real anger shake you?
Shouldn’t real action take you out of

curtained inertia into the open, ready
to descend all nine levels to look the

darkness in the eye. I drink deep – the
sky is a stubborn blue. Unbounded. The

monsoon is two months away, churning
somewhere, arming its tanks with

thunder. The heat, like shame, like
defeat, like disappointment, seeps into

bones. The sickness corrupts from the
inside. Words falter. Thoughts war with

incapacity. With silence. In the ossuary,
the last of hope, scrambles for a poem.

***

#Napowrimo #Glopowrimo
#WriteRight
#April2024 15/30