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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