Current Velocity : Zero

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i.

You are a leaf caught in an eddy

All motion and no progression

Spun around in a sickening swirl that leads to

Nowhere

 

You are a boot lodged in quicksand

Your owner and twin have escaped

The vicious vacuum, running away while you remain

Stuck

 

You are an astronaut lost in space

Cut loose from any anchor,

Adrift in a cold that doesn’t care and leaves you

Numb

 

ii.

Have you ever stood still on a street in November

While the leaves rush past you,

Smacking against your legs as they dance 

In the wind that is never strong enough to pick you up?

 

Have you ever stood still as a wave crests,

The carpet of sand yanked out from beneath your feet,

Letting the wall of water smash around you

Before it scurries up the shore without a backward glance?

 

Have you ever stood still in a crowd in some big city,

All these voices of all these people with all these plans,

A hurricane of progress and passion perfecting all of the world’s problems,

And here you are, in the eye, passive and purposeless?

 

Have you ever stood still?

 

iii.

Have you ever felt like the whole world is moving but you?

Like you could invent your own laws of motion—

As everyone else speeds up, I slow down.

 

Have you ever felt like a character in a bad dream?

The one where your sneakers are glued to the street

And the bad guy is coming and you want to run

And everyone else is running

And you

Just

Can’t

Move

 

iv.

If an external force

Is what it takes

To make mass move

Then please—

Save me from

This massive mess

And set me speeding

Because I have not

Stayed in rest,

I have been stuck there

And, oh God,

I want my velocity

To be greater than zero