in which i seriously consider vats

i can’t stop thinking
about compression;

about how when you’re standing
on your feet all day they swell
so you lay yourself down
because the idea of pressing
blood against meat against bone
of pressing against the bone
on the bottoms of your feet
is unbearable
so you stay down
and discover the pressure
has just shifted to your back
to your legs to your ass you get
fat you get bedsores and still
wherever you’re making contact
there it is, pressing, so you stand
and then you realize this is it:

i have to shift this weight — i will
always have to shift this weight;

there’s no avoiding it; it’s unbearable
if you think about it too much,
and what is too much? any much.
but you have to work you have to
press something against something
in this life this compression you have
to have a job you have to struggle
to eat you have to age you have to
watch people fall away you have to
shift that weight you have to
walk out into the world

you just have to.

but maybe if we were wealthy
we could commission a vat
full of special buoyant liquid:
a vat to suspend us
softly,
indefinitely,
and we could live there and work
there and fuck there and eat
there and get out for tolerable
jaunts on our poor compressed
feet then run home and jump

(oh sweet freedom,
sweet airborn bliss)

back into the vat.

but my make-believe vats i know
are for make-believe people — rich
people — and we sick must stand
or lie down or squirm; we must
shift weight we must press meat
against blood against bone
we must press against the bone.

and let’s be honest:
even were we wealthy,
make-believe people,
we should not live in vats.

vats are not the solution.