i wouldn’t
know joy
if it drowned me.
these are words. 
i use to call these
joy,
breathing them was paradise. 
no need
for a substitute,
as with these anything
could melt into joy. joy
had no division.
it’s been so long,
i can only describe that,
not recall that —
what was joy?
it was
words creating envelopment
out of the spinning of life.
i wrote that.  don’t know
if i felt that ever. 
don’t feel it now,
even though
i never shut up.

did you find this tedious?
as much as i did, i bet.