The pressure I put on everything:
a poem, an interview, cooking a meal.
Endlessly meditating over the specifics.
Rolling it over my tongue like hard candy,
clicking it against closed teeth,
tricking myself not to bite,
not yet,
until the sweet sucked-down sliver
stabs the roof of my mouth
and weakly breaks.
You'll never be good enough.
But today, alone in a room,
I choose to stop dazing off at the wall
waiting for inspiration to pass.
Deliberately seated and petrified
when my fingers aren't typing,
I take a small risk.
Hard candy crunched
barely out of its wrapper.
Terrorism of spirit cannot reach me here.
I am more terrified of losing this moment,
and the next one,
and the next.
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