Chewing
ancient hard taffy,
three meals a day.

Climbing the local
Dead Horse Hill
wherever I am.

Waking before dawn
to wrestle a fat
and angry angel.

These are the lives for me:

tough ones
where the easy stuff
takes forever to do
and the impossible presents itself
as regularly as church.

I’ve learned a trivium
fraught with weight 
and difficulty.
It’s all I know.

Some of us are meant
to be ground underfoot.
Some of us are meant
to wear out.
Only a few are bent
to loving that fate;
I bear that curvature
in my wasting frame
and don’t know why
but I trust the universe
to have it right,

and when the last of me
crumbles the remains
will serve some purpose,
I’m certain, for the fat
and angry angel
who will crush me
and then lift me 
with disdain
from where I’ve mingled
with dust.

I like this era
of quaint new words
that help me explain 

how I see each new day
as a hardened target
against which
I have weaponized
my smile

how I follow therefore
in my daily routine
all necessary
hazmat protocols
keeping a safe 
distance from others

how I live on such
a high alert level
prepared
for all threats

and how the occasional
preemptive strike
is necessary to preserve
my freedom