X am not

My heart aches for colour-saturated days

while I clamp my jaw around heavy numbers;

soon I'll be living in warm-toned fuzz,

a haze of grainy pictures like a memory reel -

but not soon enough.

Now is not the time for free thinking

and finding myself.

Now is the time for swallowing 

black treacle text

that chars my tongue with its bitter shape

while projections of bucket list ticks

dance quietly on the reverse of my brain.