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--- D O N A L D   I L L I C H


Two hours too long on the toilet, reading the latest news about the stars, I promise myself I’ll be more efficient with my time, start showering ruthlessly,

soap barely sudsing my body before I rip the shower curtain and escape. Phone calls with friends diminish into thirty second hellos and goodbyes.

Chatting with co-workers is cut, new photos of babies and dirty jokes are amputated from my daily life. In my office I hang up before they

can tell me I’m fired. My door’s closed, the only sound is the clacking of my keyboard, devilishly producing the documents that’ll save them money

and time, the “the” and the “love” that inspire the spiders in my fingers. At home I read only first chapters then tear out the rest to mop up spills.

My bed’s stuffed inside the bathroom, the towel closet filled with my clothes, a hot plate perilously balancing on the sink, and when I sleep I hear

the drip of the sink I’m too busy to fix and the pipes squeezing the worms of water inside them. In that lone hour of rest, I dream

of solutions to problems, repairing documents thought to be lost in the void. You rarely show up, except to ferry reports the shortest path between

two points. No zig-zags on my heart, no leisurely looks at the valley below. I’ve closed the park, broke the tourist binoculars; you can’t see anything at all.

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