The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

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The fear of each looming moment
is over before you had a chance to
know it in your lungs, on your skin.
It regenerates, comes alive and walks
slowly toward the other moments,
the new ones queued to die.

All the bleeding, all the fevers,
all the slow, horizontal afternoons
leave nothing behind when the
healing hands are laid upon you.
What remains is the worry of
what comes in the morning:
the struggle to control that
which can never be harnessed.

The pills are variegated and smooth,
like pebbles scattered on the Eastern shore,
each one sweetening the tongue
before circling the drain inside.

Then, you wait for their magic
and it puzzles you,
the way we live our lives
searching for a way to ease the pain.