NaPoWriMo Day 6....Human Error

Human Error

The rot rooted deeper than I realized, 

The shears gummed at the rose stalk 

as useless as toothless gums against steak 

when the stalk gave way, the center creased 

black and brown with fungal pulp 

inside the center, the butt of an insect  

pulsed arrhythmically, it knew who I was. 

Exposed and nowhere else to go 

it tried complete stillness, 

it played pretend, played at death 

as if it were already sundered in two. 

I took my small pocket knife 

and slipped it in and twisted. 

I have felt like that insect, trapped. 

I will die like a worm, ambiguous, 

laying in my tunnels of life, 

then one early spring a gardener 

will come with her spade and tear 

me in two, blindly and unaware 

of the worlds that lay beneath her. 

I will die by the hand of someone 

ambivalent, sheep-like, and negligent. 

Someone pacified by a phone as they drive 

they will mow me down as if I am  

a blade of grass in a sea of lawn. 

I will die by the hand of human error 

the excuse and innocence summed up 

in the overarching word of ‘humanity.’ 

The act of being human is brimming 

with opportunities of unintended mistakes 

and I will die by it like falling on a knife 

or running down a hall with scissors. 

I will be killed by another’s negligence 

by their violent innocence and unintended 

unconsciousness to result in an accident. 

I will be murdered by some freak mistake, 

but it would be the same as being killed 

while looking at myself dying in a mirror.