Dialing down intensity and ambiguity,
once—or sometimes—a necessity,
has become a dominating habit.

Bright light washes out textures,
contrasts become lines become edges
in a never-surprising orientation quest
that may have lost its purpose.

A patchwork, a spider web,
has put itself around me,
bite-sized tiles covering every inch,
every angle, telling a story
of simplicity.

There are betweens,
I can see them if I try,
but the betweens are always second,
made betweens through and
in relation to the firsts
on and along which I crawl
towards my prey
so reliably.

My unspoken committment
is to a parasite feeding off of my fear
that without submitting to it,
I might not survive
or not succeed.

Necessity has become a habit
and now the habit
pretends to be necessity
justifying that leap like propaganda
through its own pervasiveness.

It is time to stop the domination
and try a bit harder
to allow everything
to be anything.