Not yet, I scream
(internally, as this is an office),
caught scrambling for le mot juste
to fill the precise space of a particular
thought, clinging to a cursor the size of Texas
fading in and out, playing peekaboo with realty,
a frantic SOS mimicking my shaken hand and
the heart in my throat, limp and heavy
beneath an unblinking eye, a second, third—
direct windows to god—looming overhead,
and the taught curves and sleek legs and
sturdy cores in each chain of back-to-back
letters return the glares, holding this space
unfazed, fearless as the hour they were created,
and though I can’t protect them from judgement,
from the world’s scorn or resentment,
I can admire their naked confidence—beautiful
and innocent, and entirely absent of shame—
from the margins, desperate to draw the page
lovingly about their necks, a thin,
digital curtain concealing the darlings
whose slaughter I must witness
as testament to the hope it takes
to birth an idea.