Nose Bad Taste
We are not tired. That is the thing.
Not tired and sleeping anyway ... The kind of sleep that has nothing to do with rest ... Eyes open ... Scrolling ... Buying ... Voting ... Sleeping through all of it with our hands full ...
Slumber is not sleep. Sleep is what the body needs. Slumber is what the body chooses when knowing costs too much ...
A woman in Ohio drives past the same billboard every morning ... Something about water quality ... She has been driving past it for three years ... She has never read past the first two words ... Her coffee is in the cupholder ... Her kids are in the back seat ... The billboard is not hiding ... She is not blind ... The agreement between her and the sign is that she will keep moving and it will keep standing and neither will bother the other about it ...
She is not refusing ... She is just not arriving ...
A grandmother in Houston has been awake her whole life ... She does not have the option of slumber ... Her skin will not let her sleep through what her neighbors sleep through ... She hears the word masses and thinks ... you are only a mass when you can afford to be ... The rest of us are counted one at a time ... usually by people who are not on our side ...
A twenty-year-old reads the phrase slumbering and complacent and feels it land in two places ... The part that knows it is true ... and the part that is too exhausted to care that it is true ... She has been awake since she was fourteen ... Awake to the climate ... awake to the debt she has not yet earned ... awake to the algorithm ... She is not complacent ... She is tired of being the only one awake in the house ...
Masses. That word. It takes the face off everyone at once ...
And then.
Take a few deep breaths if that seems supportive for you.
After all of that ... after the accusation ... after the naming ... the voice does not take it back ... does not apologize ... just ... offers air ...
Breathe if that helps. Not breathe because I told you to ... If it seems supportive ... If your body wants it ... If the lungs agree ...
DISCUSTING
February 12, 2026
Unfolding
Methodology: Wonderful Garbage
Style: Noir Song
Oyparaploo
