Holding To The Bone

Holding To The Bone

They say, "The flesh is weak,

but the spirit is willing."

The bone is immovable.

When the talk turns frigid

and brittle,

I break off my words,

indigestibly able

to lacerate the throat and stomach when

swallowed whole.

This affair with anger

pains the softer parts of me,

the smooth, fleshy underside

that flinches beneath the knife.

So I hold to the bone.

The marrow is a bitter meal,

crystalline between my teeth; the shaft

is steel...

white with severity of purpose:

REMAIN CONSTANT, STEADFAST, HABITUAL.

(habit, you see, is the bone of

perseverance...

that is why we speak of "breaking" habits)

The tender are always the first to go---

we roll them into tiny compliances, bricks to

prop the infrastructure.

They have not yet become addicted

to the pain of

standing erect.

Homo Sapien,

top-heavy with your sapience,

crumpling with curvature-of-the-perseverance,

your fractured habits are

healing crooked.

I can hear them grinding beneath

the pale skin of your progress, and I

know...

I should have been born invertebrate.