It began with 

the pathological enthusiasm of the trainer: used-
car-salesman smile 
“I’m sure 
you’re going 
to love it!” 
left momentarily blank & blinking 
by the ‘no, I won’t‘ reply. Why 
say that to someone who had you read the ‘chart’ 
(fairly certain they didn’t read the ‘chart’) 
would have seen what I’d said it is: surrender 
after forty years of 
‘we can do this’, then ‘*I* can do this’ 
to wearable machinery because of 
perimenopausal hormonal fuckery 
          (oh the longeststanding fear – 
            ‘tied to machines that make me be‘) 
my soul-daughter sees ‘body horror’, my lifemate 
just the replacement of extant stressors and frustrations 
with a whole new set. Overriding / Rewriting twenty-plus 
years of routine leaves anxiety bursts: so 
sure you’re forgetting to do
what keeps you alive. The tech 
is good, until it isn’t: three hours of lost sleep 
& five phone calls between 
two and four a.m. today 
on the heels of a week of seismographic rise 
& fall rates, line looking for all intents & purposes 
like lie-detector brainwaves 
and where 
is the lie 
in that?