for me, this time, the formula came from reservation and burden,
curtains, a milk so thick with guilt it looked like bile
and, infused, a frost which looked like chalk to churn

there wasn't any green
which might have made it simpler
and, I guess, I found the orange minimal

for the most part the fog was something like beige
or maybe taupe and
in any case it amounted to something so unmoving
it could have been taken for stability
if the equation lacked any emotion or headway

fetal inhibitions and an urge to throw back insults
and unnecessary tugs and curls, an aching, not a blow

and the stomach felt like mucky graphs infested with
some gauzy lint that moved along the hairline
faults

and the paralyzing silence came with something like a yeast
that, unflagging, wouldn't sit and wouldn't listen until reason in its fury
sentenced it to bed

and bulk like light without the flickers, coins or vest-clad poster feelings
something tar might someday sympathize with if it plugged in reason
which the bulk, unlike the crud, won't allow to turn in sockets

the insistence on irrationality came with recognizing it and knowing better and feeling unable to release the grip and knowing the grip took too little for granted and knowing the guilt was overwrought, really, and knowing prolonged flattening might leave some sort of seasoning, some sort of graying in the eyes

a slowness unrelenting, when it came down on me, molting

and a feverish uncertainty whenever it released

the solution wasn't topical, and only coldly felt intestinal,
and the knowing, the knowing, that it wasn't quite right when it still wasn't - gutted, flogged

and is it now and is the lightness NOT a threat in teacher's clothing with a feather-piping pit? waiting somewhere, waiting in some tighter, cramped-in place? some less known state without that craning guilt of reason, something permanent and pleasantly sub-stilling - on a plane?

(Written in 2008)