On Being a Grid One Might Go Off Of
The first step is to stop just beyond the weight of organs.
The sense of gravity sitting in tissue is like the space between
carcass and curb, before the reek worms into rock pores:
a sleeplessness there, that continual niche-trash. You too
once knew what it was to feel impressive. As the bed dissolves
into the walls, the walls disrobe themselves of their edges
and your resolve is now acute in the locking jaw of darkness.
Beg to be let. You, like bravery, leave behind the breath-inflated
lump, its depths, and its refusal to lace the cells of scars over even
the metaphorical guttings. To manage the act exceeds the box-
and-whisker of lately’s along-going. You’ve grown so accustomed
to mereness that what you call a life no longer houses the sublime.
It seems easy to leave. It seems this easy to leave. After
a second you’ll want to consider the centimeters of resistance
stitching air between here and all of elsewhere. But, still,
inhabit the bodiless second. To possess it is a bearable joy.
Copyright Credit: Justin Phillip Reed, "On Being A Grid One Might Go Off" from Indecency. Copyright © 2018 by Justin Phillip Reed. Reprinted by permission of Coffee House Press, www.coffeehousepress.org.