Rachel Nagelberg: “Human Default”

HUMAN DEFAULT

To be a person is to be worried that you might not be one².


I have something invisible  and it is mine  I grasp
for the bottle  a piece of chalk  the steering wheel
shifts in my hands  willingly  piloting my body-ship
it’s like I’ve forgotten the most vital  line  a glint in
the erasure  what is this  melancholia?  I fight to be
sad  in sadness I discover myself  again and again 
like a Gif of Eve eating an apple on repeat  if the 
intellect is an organ of extinction  than why do I
risk my precious life for it  deep down in the body  
a dragon rustles  scales click on scales  a great heat 
accumulates  time swallows itself  concrete expands
some days my muscles purr and fall asleep  I try to
use them and they wobble like toddlers  I will scold
my youth until it  cries out  and I fall asleep  in defeat

---

² Timothy Morton, Dark Ecology