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Pinballing

A poem

This article was originally published by The Atlantic and is republished here under license.

I was pinballing/
slamming the back glass/
hitting every outlane/
triggering a ramp shot/
spinning red after years/
of running/nights/
of crashing/I wanted power over something/
anything/thought:
what would it look like/
the glistening body/cut open/
the jewels of itself/turning?
The back glass of the body/
breached? Would I come
alive in the cut/you could say seeing
my inside body/its wires &
circuits/my spiky wrist/you could say
gleeful at the sight? Say revenge/
say pitiful to be alive this way/
to have a body relax
at the sight of it, you
could say.

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