Reaction

I’m standing at the blackboard, chalk

In one hand, eraser in the other, and

Just when I think I’ve got it balanced,

The molecules get scrambled—

Salt’s jumped from the shaker to

The sugar bowl, methane’s upped

Its game from guttural stink to

Heart-stopping triglyceride—and is

It heat or oxygen or water that’s

Catalyzing the reaction because

The how dictates the what,

And I wake up in the middle of

The night in middle class middle age

Middle management middle America

Trying to grok what it means

That my wine-besotted brain plucked

This high school nightmare from

The basement beneath the stairs,

Brushed off the dust and ran it back

Through my RAM in my REM: Am I—

Strung out from the sturm und drang,

Choking on the first bitter morsel

Of my body's traitorous decline,

Suffused with solastalgia at every

First-world sin—unequal to the

Circumstances of this circumstantial life,

Or am I just fucking awful at chemistry?

9/11/2023 - 9/16/2023