Take a breath
without the taste
of lithium
on the back
of your tongue.

Today will be a teenager’s plate
after choosing breakfast for dinner—
syrup smeared with ketchup,
bits of pancake and his brother’s fries
and his mother’s salad and foam
from his father’s beer,
confusing shapes in sugar crystals.

Consume the day
like a starving dog.

Turn the table
into abstract art.

Leave a mess for
the gathering piss ants
to judge like flakes
of pepper in a windstorm.