Ticking down the minutes of some clock I can’t see
Cramped into an office chair that’s come to know me
I want to tell them that the days are in a fog.
Like the haze outside
born from the slow burn of the next province over –
blotting out an otherwise uncharacteristically warm August –
I forget, frequently, that it is August.
I forget, frequently, anything beyond one just-graspable moment
steeped in work at this job or the next one
and the movement it requires of me and my synapses.
I want to tell them that I have no thoughts.
I have no concept of how I am coming across to people
but I see the disconnect flicker across their faces when I speak
and I know the crevasse between myself and the discernible world
grows deeper yet.
People say I should enter the system we have in place
to fix things like this
as though the gradual dissolve of my personality is a tangible thing.
I want to tell them that the system is wrong,
intertwined in the systems that brought me here
and works tirelessly to make me a liability –
I want to tell them that it is built on the bad taste in my mouth
when I don’t speak for 24 hours
and profits from my silence.
I want to tell them that my words may as well be silence.
I want to thank them for listening anyway.
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