It was all my
varied vices
I had to lose:
the chocolate,
the wine,
the spice of
Sailor Jerry, its
46%, its pirate-
in-the-Caribbean
aesthetic,
the crushing of
dangling ash—
from my no-
no cigarette,
on the bluest
Havarti moon,
that cholesterol
will be
my rash undoing ,
in the swirl of
coffee’s cream,
the tub of Häagen-
Dazs,
the in-your-face
of nachos at the
pub, their coronary
special—loaded
to the brim,
like flows of
orange lava
and their rocks,
hardening
in moments,
or the cupcake’s
twist of icing ,
like snow atop a
peak, which always
brings to mind
Kilimanjaro’s
frosted crest,
before the climate
changed,
or Fuji’s
vanilla
summit,
knowing an avalanche
could hit you in a
minute, that you’ll never
outrun its wave,
its surge: tsunami-
like,
my heart unable to
take
that kind of pounding ,
my middle: roly-
poly,
since the days I
traded quinoa
for a cone,
washed it down
with beer
instead of “water-from-a-
spring,”
from the foothills
of “the mountain,”
which I've always
deemed a rip-off,
its failure to
give me a kick-
start
when I needed
it the most,
its lie of ever-
clear,
its leach
of lethal plastic.
Andreas Gripp
September 14, 2024
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