Lizzy Burnam 🐞

If the Norwegian YouTube guru 
tells me I’m worth 
the annually-renewed $129.99 
subscription 
to all that’s known and all that’s knowable 
about SEO, stomach ulcers, 
the etymological origins 
of words like conquer and wild 
and whether or not all philosophers feel
this useless 
and whether or not uselessness 
is even the point  
and where the hell is Beirut
and also how to plan funerals 
that aren’t, like, sad—
if the Norwegian YouTube guru
tells me I’m worth 
knowing and becoming all that, 
then goddammit, 
I think I’m worth it too. 
I’d like my apples
peeled and boiled 
in brown sugar and brandy 
while I’m at it, busy with this business 
of rising and falling 
through different waves 
on the same ocean, 
rising and falling 
with the breath
of the host 
of the 10-minute meditation podcast 
I sometimes listen to 
when I can’t stop thinking
about my self as a mirror 
and my soul as a door 
and the white winter sun glaring 
like an oyster 
from the white winter sky.
I walk when the light at the crosswalk 
tells me I can walk. 
I walk faster when it blinks, 
15 seconds, 14 seconds, 13 seconds. 
Maybe, next summer, 
I’ll AirBnB in Albuquerque 
just because. 
Maybe I should take my parents 
out to lunch. 
Maybe I’ll move my bed to this corner
or to that one by the window. 
God, even the robots 
ask me 
what I am.