Against Dying by Kaveh Akbar

Against Dying

 

if the body is just a parable 

about the body if breath 

is a leash to hold the mind 

then staying alive should be 

easier than it is most sick 

things become dead things 

at twenty-four my liver was

already covered in fatty

rot my mother filled a tiny

coffin with picture frames 

I spent the year drinking 

from test tubes weeping

wherever I went somehow

it happened wellness crept 

into me like a roach nibbling 

through an eardrum for 

a time the half minutes 

of fire in my brainstem 

made me want to pull out 

my spine but even those

have become bearable so 

how shall I live now

in the unexpected present

I spent so long in a lover’s

quarrel with my flesh

the peace seems over-

cautious too-polite I say

stop being cold or make

that blue bluer and it does

we speak to each other

in this code where every word

means obey I sit under 

a poplar tree with a thermos 

of chamomile feeling  

useless as an oath against 

dying I put a sugar cube 

on my tongue and 

swallow it like a pill