One

Think of it

as a gift: this slip

& fall laid you up

for months. Think

of the stack of books,

the Netflix you’ve

yet to binge. Watch

the crack in the wall seep

toward the crack

in the floor

forevermore. You’ve been

cast as the victim,

the one lucky enough

to’ve been given

this amber bottle filled

with pills.

One pill makes you

old & the rest make you

older still until

you are too dense

to exist, a singularity

that plummets through

the veil between this world

& the one you imagined

waited at the end

of the tunnel filled

with every gift you wanted

but never got, empty

cardboard boxes

wrapped in festive paper

existing only

to cushion your fall.