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Sunday, April 7, 2019

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.  

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