You know you'll never manage
To boil away your flesh,
Though gods only know you've tried.
This blasted evolutionary machine was built for the savannahs of eras past,
But you never ran those planes.
And so all the exhaustion that chafing scrub and choking steam can provide
Stubbornly refuse to budge the abundance you never wanted.
You know you'll never manage
To freeze away your flesh,
Though gods only know you've tried.
The sharp corners of your soul are nowhere in your biology,
No matter how desperately you try to chill away
The soft curves that only ever cast the shadow
Of what the world wants to see in you.
You know you'll never manage
To wish away your flesh,
Though gods only know you've tried.
Were it possible, it already would've happened all those years ago,
When only the merest hint of an inkling was starting to unfold
Of why this awkward, inescapable shell never did fit quite right.
There is no haze to it, no angles,
No braids of cosmic strings and nebulae to chart your path through time and space.
You cannot float, or shatter, or ooze, or fade,
Only listen to the thrum of this fallible blood
And ignore as best you can this paltry, leaden form.