by Mary Honaker
Gravity is stronger because I am ill. I feel the constant pull of the earth. I drop to my knees and rest my forehead on the floor.
Words get lost in the corridors of my brain. Your mouth is moving, and sound is coming out. I’ve been asked a question I can’t answer.
There is no other universe but this one, where I grow heavy and soft, and the ground calls my name.
The sun is cooler because I am sick. It’s summer and I’m wrapped in a blanket. It’s winter and I’m wrapped in three.
When a dog barks, I am reminded that the world is still outside my window. But my bed is my universe. I climb the mountains heaved up by its sheets. I fall into steep ravines.
The lamp is my sun, its shade a thin cloud. Night comes by light switches, day by light switches. Night and day could be anytime.
The Law of Attraction states that if I go out and walk around the mall, then I will be hopelessly drawn into my bed for several days.
I blink and I wake up hours later. I sigh and a fraction of a fraction of a second passes. Time shortens and lengthens. This is relativity. If I am alive, time shrinks. If I am dead, time becomes eternity.
I am dead most of the time, or a shoestring’s width away from death.
I am lying on the floor because of gravity. I need to let it, immutable, cradle me for a while.
1 sleep + 1 sleep = still sleepy. This is math. 2 sleeps + 2 sleeps = utter exhaustion. The day has disappeared into the mouth of night.
Today is the same as yesterday as the day before. All time is now, and now I am ill. This is quantum physics.
From the beginning of the world, I have been ill. When the secondhand stops ticking forward, I will still be sick. This is eschatology.
About the Author:
Mary Ann Honaker is the author of Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019), and Whichever Way the Moon (Main Street Rag, 2023) along with the chapbooks It Will Happen Like This (YesNo Press, 2015) and Gwen and the Big Nothing (The Orchard Street Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Bear Review, JMWW, Juked, Little Patuxent Review, Rattle.com, Solstice, Sweet Tree Review, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Beckley, West Virginia.