Skinny

There is something about existence

With all of its magnitude

and microcosm

All of its marvels

and mysteries

Its shapelessness

and its forms

Its indifference

and indulgence

Its power

and frailty 

That eats at me. 

So I need not eat. 

So when some pale hourglass

asks me why I’m so skinny

I fill my lungs

with smoke and sigh

and leave him or her to wonder why

just as I am left

wondering and wanting

under an empty sky. 

I know that Huxley feared

the disassociation,

in the succeeding generation,

of sex and reproduction

while he shared a bed

with a wife and another-

and I wonder if this caused him dread. 

But each morning 

I have to remind myself

that I haven’t done anything wrong

yet that day

unless defying my disorder

warrants a court order

To exile me to the other side 

of that dark border.