I cannot write this poem

I cannot write this poem because my head hurts. I cannot write this poem because I’m hungry. I cannot write this poem because it’s too hot in this room. I cannot write this poem because I am not a morning person. I cannot write this poem because I need my matcha latte first. I cannot write this poem because there is a leaf blower blowing outside my room at 9 in the fucking morning. I cannot write this poem because I have places to be. I cannot write this poem because I have messages to answer. I cannot write this poem because there’s an 11am I’m running late to. I cannot write this poem because because I drank too much matcha latte. I cannot write this poem because my poems don't pay Bay Area rent. I cannot write this poem because I am not an afternoon person. I cannot write this poem because I will dick around on my computer instead. It’s not that I want to, it’s just that I will. I cannot write this poem because it will come out as a B-. I cannot write this poem because I must wait for inspiration. I cannot write this poem because it will be too…cute. I cannot write this poem because akrasia. I cannot write this poem because my insides have become cold. I cannot write this poem because my skin is covered by a sheath of machines that eat poetry so they can answer more Slack messages. I cannot write this poem because my mind is filled with eagles that swoop down to tear apart the words as they form. I cannot write this poem because self-love is for pussies. I cannot write this poem because Joe Gilchrist from 6th grade will find it, and read it, and put it on an iPad, and hold the tablet over the people say, “You see: He was a faggot all along.” I cannot write this poem because it will form cracks across my skeleton, and yoke will drip out. I cannot write this poem because its claws will dig through my stomach and tear out the stones of inertia. I cannot write this poem because it will turn my insides out, leaving my organs exposed to the night air. I cannot write this poem because I am covered in soot and have been for years. I cannot write this poem because I have sprayed graffiti across the face of my god. I cannot write this poem because the neurons in my brain form a tangle of vines so dense that the sun can no longer shine through to meet the ground, where I lie now, breathing shallowly in the mist of my own throat. I cannot write this poem because I do not want to be touched by the light. I cannot write this poem because I am not ready to face that we are all in a free climb on the sheer rock of a crag. I cannot write this poem because I do not know where the handholds are. I cannot write this poem because I do not want to fall. I cannot write this poem because outside my building I opened a garbage bin to toss in a styrofoam cup. It was empty except for a sudden movement at the bottom. It was a small rat, trapped alone. I turned the bin over to let the rat escape, but now my mind fills with a scene of myself as the rat, my eyeline cropped close to the ground, and my body trapped and starving amongst dark plastic walls, not knowing whether a tall god will come for me. I cannot write this poem because outside of my window, beyond the roads, there are forests where rats are eaten by snakes alive, and snakes are eaten by eagles, and the eagles who do not find snakes to eat must feel themselves starve and die. I cannot write this poem because my people pour out like rats from Civic Center Plaza twitching, convulsing, a seizure in ratted jackets whose bloodshot eyes lock onto mine and pass fleeting apprehensions of minds made to splinter into wheels that grind hope to rot. I cannot write this poem because it is a rose stem in the path of a boulder the size of this entire earth. I cannot write this poem because I am told that everything is fine, and I cannot help but to bleach my mind and believe it. I cannot write this poem because there is no meaning, only psychology. I cannot write this poem because art is an opiate. I cannot write this poem because no matter how close I get to another human, I will never touch their mind. I cannot write this poem because no matter how far I walk, I have never touched the horizon. I cannot write this poem because I wish for the goo of comfort, through which my poems slice like the flaming swords of angels. I cannot write this poem because to become greater is to face annihilation. I cannot write this poem because I do not want to remember what I stand for. I cannot write this poem because it hurts when I care. I cannot write this poem because the pounding in my chest drowns out the words. I cannot write this poem because I am swept up by the passion in blood in veins. I cannot write this poem because my fingers stretch out toward the bend of the sun. I cannot write this poem because blood flows to my arms, where veins budge to feed muscles that flex and pull me higher through illuminated leaves. I cannot write this poem because it cannot contain an infinity of hues that stream toward me and warm my skin in beams of light. I cannot write this poem because the referent of “I” straddles the open sky of my mind as only a single stratus cloud, a single grain of sand swirling in the ocean beneath, a single starling’s arc in the churn of murmuration, a readme file inside a petabyte, a charm quark in an atom dancing on the edge of a planetary body. I cannot write this poem because the words are too slow for my acceleration. I cannot write this poem because my future writes it for me. I cannot write this poem because my poems now write themselves. I cannot write this poem because it is already written.