Photic

I started this job in a bright white office and found myself with two hours a day when i got home to feel like myself. Some one brought cheese cake. I took DNA tests as part of my job.

When I was twelve I stole a tin of condensed milk

And ate it.

Apparently I have the gene for a sweet tooth.

Apparently I have genes that lack empathy too

and empty hemp dreams, temperamental

sentimental goo

I find it oozing like cheesecake untinned in the heat of those cold bright lights.

 

Apparently I have the genes for photic sneeze

and I lose my train of thought every day for two hours.

Condensed.

That was it. Because now I live in two hours a day and now I sleep eight hours a night

That can’t be right.

and count the hours in photic sneezes cross off lists and listen from my end of the the office.

Apparently I have the genes for speed.

Perhaps that is why it all goes so slow and once it felt like there were these endless spaces

Between everything happening like stepping stones regretting those endless spaces

And when foot hit floor it felt underwater, or head above water

Mrs porter and her daughter, cauterized in rosehip eggyolk,

Far too late for soda water.

And perhaps I have the genes that make it so easy to convince myself I am a bad person.

Maybe it was all that catholic school.

I like that he doesn’t see me that way.

How can I ferment cement two hours a day

 

That wretched bear hunt is a lie I told myself too much

Straight through is not the only way, straight through is a bent crutch.

Each time they asked what brought me back I told them it was time,

I said I would just wait it out, creating my own tides.

And lies I told that dug me deeper seemed more than a spade

Unquestionable laid like tracks attached to that decay.