Sublime

Because nothing could be taken from me, I thought, if I had already given it away.

Poetry is a problem of form and emptiness. Ze moment I put one word onto an empty page, I hef created a problem for myself. Ze poem that emerges is form, trying to find a solution to my problem.” He sighed. “In ze end, of course, there are no solutions. Only more problems, but this is a good thing. Without problems, there would be no poems.”

I wait. And I wait. For a cure. A miracle. A medicine. A romantic partner. I wait for pain relief and physical ease. I wait for an answer. For a placebo that convinces me to wake up the potential in my body for joy and regeneration.

Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.

None of us spoke as we checked out, our words suddenly wrong everywhere, even in our mouths.