stapled

Empty thoughts obstruct what I love -
what I long to do in the moments I’m unable,
chained
and stuck
and stapled,
forming an enemy bent to snuff what remains.
Creatively I abscond,
an anti-arsonist.

The bucket of flour – mine,
teeters confidently on the shelf above what’s left,
(now only slight smolderings of craft)
so that it can bully and blanket
my only motive
with a film that hints
teasingly toward a suffocating end.

“Children,” the teacher instructs,
“the pyromaniac is one who gives in to incendiary longing,
weak like the stilted victim with roots that no longer matter.”

So I am both – the anti and the obsessed,
Negation for a brief, anomalous minute
Only until the bucket tires of teasing
and falls,
leaving me
(me!)
languid.