you can administer any time you like.

Just add water, then vinegar.

Drop in a dash of pepper.

Now measure your sense of growing

impending doom.

Now compare that to a friend.

Ask them how they feel about the end

of the world.  Are they making plans?

Have they written anything down?

Some cultures don’t.  It’s like putting

your head in the sand.  It’s like pretending

you don’t have a head, that there is no

sand, that sand is not a thing.

Sand is a thing.  I have seen it.  I pick it out

of my clothing at the beach.

The beach is also a thing.  Here is a simple

test.  See how many people you trust.

Is that number dwindling?  Welcome to the

club, baby girl.

It is quite something indeed

to realize that all points

of life offer some

semblance of disillusionment

If you expect the ceiling

to be so high, people to putter

around kindly, and every

object to be made of marble.

Here I sit at the spinning

center of the universe.

Well, it’s just a room.

Conversations go on all

around me, but I sit listening

to my mind.  Wondering.

I am the spoke in this wheel,

except I really don’t think

I turn much of anything here.

Yes, it’s nice to become

acquainted with sound

and reason of other beings,

makes one feel like one belongs

to an invisible club –

the lines were always drawn,

but it’s helpful to know they

were not imagined.

It’s remedy for the sanity.

Finally nice to know what is

meant by all these chuckles,

to get the inside joke,

to speak the vernacular, try

it on like a glove on the tongue.

Practicing in the mirror

three times this morning alone.

There now, doesn’t that feel better,

or does it make matters worse,

now with a heavy mouth?