For us days are bowls of water

We wrestle all the usual angels:
Coffee, cigarettes, paper, daisy chains
They know us only and best if our muscles are taut
Slicked with gleaming exertion—
The idea of sweat

It is a given that we will set the world aflame, they told us that on our birth days,
So the only question left to us is: lighter or match? Electric
Or gasoline? If we are feeling old-fashioned—
But we never will be

To feel another indolent evening’s kiss is always a deep, deep breath of the coolest aromatic air
The kind of electric horizon blue that marketplace flowers only achieve if we dye them

We who are so sick of our lives have it rough
The hardest part is getting out of bed
The rest slips by without an unmanufactured thought,
So easy

We buy new clothes every week
We buy shoes we can’t wear because they hurt our feet
We take pills that give us flawless skin
We take pills that give us vitamins
We wake up with uterine heads
We read about Egypt and wish we were dead