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Deplete of love, Asphyxiating from the noise Of my past wrong actions, Drowning in the debt of purchased goods, Fettered to the compulsive whims of SaaS subs, I am caught this morning in a human spun web. Somehow I have mummified myself In my own silk, Preparation for My own envenomation and Extraoral digestion. For it does feel, Like the spider awaiting The intestines of its prey, That I am liquidated in My own webbed casket From where I have caught myself, Awaiting to eat myself At a future date, My exoskeleton Turned into pudding So my pharynx Can slurp myself up, My old liquefied carcass Nourishing my new self — It all forever caught in This orbicular webscape. Netscape. Dream. 'Scape. My eyes betray me and Obsess on the beauties Fleeting in my periphery. A woman, perhaps, Wearing antifit jeans, Converse, a blazer. Powerclash. So cool, Yet professional. Confident, Yet chill. Damn. Desire. Casually in front of me. I overtake thee. “Get behind me, Satan.” Laughing. You fool. What am I but also these things? A man whose arms like trunks Are toned. Swoll. A tattoo: Poignant, somehow of nature. He works out and I wonder, “That’s a lot of reps. Where do you, good sir, find the motivation and time to carry-on with so much body building while my puny self is satisfied with a mere push-up here, pull-up there?” A child sits Knees-tucked-to-the-chest On a gate chair by terminal two. So nimble. So casually flexible. Desire even this. A sparrow swoops in To feed on the insects By the door. So swift. So stress free Despite my worrying about How I’d ever be the one To catch an insect In my mouth while Swooning through Tight quarters. At twenty-eight thousand The pilot takes us down To smoother air Between the outflow boundary Of neighboring incus clouds, Left and right, where we bounce Hundreds of feet at a time, A silent prayer: “If this is death, thank you, Lord, for this good privilege to be a human; and better, a human who has remembered Thee somewhat. Follow me in this next life. Don’t keep me from Me as you did for so long in the middle years of this life, a decade’s drought between confirmation and psychiatry of vowing ‘God is dead.’ I can’t bare the moments where I have forgotten Thee. Even now is shambles, but thank you, Lord, for this chance to appreciate life as we tumble through the skies contemplating death. I don’t think we’re going to die, but if we do, what a ride. What a ride.” Out there to the west, The sun is giving paradise. All we see from our angle Through the fuselage port Is an orange-melon gradient Spilling across faraway clouds. You know — you think you know — That those pilots are getting high On the beauty of that sky, The rest of us, Shades down To stop the glare On our seatback displays, Watching the news, The Masters, or The show that ends for us Before The End for us, Having prematurely Reached our gate. Beauty, beauty everywhere. I’m doing it again, Walking through The infinite thoroughfare of The world’s busiest airport, Surreptitiously spying Eyes, that furtive glance With a beautiful stranger. My eyes betray me Looking for beauty Out there When The joy I crave Is in here. Channel, channel, channel That you once have been The woman whose body curves, The man whose muscles bulge, The bird whose wings glide, The sky whose clouds Are wondrously effervescent blush, Simultaneously caustic gray, Violent pangs of Tron-green lightning, Dun as far as the horizon sees. Channel, channel, channel That you have once been What it’s been like To have been The bend in the river, The leaf upon the tree, The tree, The chair beneath the bower, The shade and the light, The chiaroscuro, The canvas, The art and The artist. How much longer Must I long For what I am No longer But still am? It pains my eyes, My ears, My hands To only caress My love, To only admire My love, To only listen My love. I the feeling Is never satisfactorily Close enough. I am not Close enough. I am not. The recognition that I am not. Only I am. Only I. I love I.