Blue Motion

So you want to know
what it’s like this way
when the numbness coats you like a lozenge
and you move in slow motion retakes
locked inside your box
at odds with the world;
so you’re curious how it feels
skating on the edge
each step weighted
by one million mice
each word spoken
a process of years it takes
to lift your leaden tongue,
and you amble through it all
in a cloudy sort of dream
watching yourself walk,
talk, go through it all
because you’ve memorized the steps
but you’ve forgotten why you walk,
and you stare into the sun.

Mitchell Waldman’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The Waterhouse Review, Crack the Spine,The Houston Literary Review, Fiction Collective, The Faircloth Review, Epiphany, Wilderness House Literary Magazine, The Battered Suitcase, and many other magazines and anthologies. He is also the the author of the novel, A Face in the Moon, and the story collection, Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart (Wind Publications), and has served as Fiction Editor for Blue Lake Review. (For more info, see his website at http://mitchwaldman.homestead.com).