Day 5

Challenge: Play with the sestina.

How It Is Here

I keep trying to give things up —
sugar, booze, useless anxiety —
and so far I’m only successful at
the worry. Most of it, anyway.
As long as you don’t count the sweaty
dreams, where I’m always alone
and late and lost. TBH, I’m alone
a lot of the time, but that’s okay. Up
here on the 3rd floor, 50fuckin7, sweaty
is reserved for the 9-5 anxiety of
saying the wrong thing. So anyway,
I’m more successful if I
stay silent. Shit. “Success” is just
another moving target. Like “alone” no longer
means lonely. And hey — is there a way
to make myself a moving target? I’ve got to get up
from the damn desk, burn off the stress 
around my waist. God, I get sweaty 
thinking about my metabolism, sweaty
ruminating about other peoples’ successes.
All this emotional work makes me nervous, like
I’m Sisyphus, pushing a big old boulder, alone
on the mountain, mad, shouldering it up up up
through vertical impending disaster, all the way
to the top … Fuck it. There’s no way I can
go on with that metaphor. Like I said, I don’t sweat
anymore. I sit. I can’t make myself get out
of this damn chair. When I imagine success
it belongs to someone else. I’m not lonely per se,
and a little yellow pill eats anxiety down to
nearly nothing. And why worry when 
everyone’s crazy anyway? 
It’s fine to be old and mostly alone.
I got this, folks. No actual sweat.
I suppose, looking back, I’ve been successful,
getting myself up every morning.

But what are you up to? I’m anxious to hear
about your successes. Anyway, sweetie, don’t
sweat it. Write back if you can. I’m fine on my own.