Cracking those wretched
little lozenges between my teeth
tastes like all the horror
that is becoming my composition.
Delicate balance
of chemistry and biology,
offset so easily, tipped to rock
pendulous
one swing toward preposterous bliss
floodgates streaming
legions of whooping dopamine
and one swing toward a hollow clench
melancholy or that black hint
of cognitive damage.
Yes, that taste is the composition changing.
That of what I am,
what makes me feel like me
constricting
on itself choking itself
into a newer, unhappier snipped-wire skeleton.
Oh we all think of that bitter swallow
when we whisper hearsay
in the harsh light
of stretched pupil mornings, muttering
of Parkinson’s, spinal fluid, schizophrenia
but these things seem too profound.
every little crunch that tastes like basement labs
and home additives and the myriad of fiends
taking dollars or nickels from the bills
we pass for each bitter bit
in these posh and plastic clubs
reminds me that we are all losing ourselves
and becoming worse than we are.
Becoming slower,
Stalling, stuttering our minds,
faltering and grasping after our diction.
Wresting apart that delicate internality
that literally makes us
what we are
with every foul little bite.