sugar is smoking
it’s amazing how death
is always around the corner,
or not even so far away
as that, hiding in the little pleasures
that some of us would go
so far as to say
are the only things
keeping us alive
Copyright © 2013 by Jason Schneiderman. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on May 22, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.
"When I wrote this, I was thinking about how a coping mechanism can outlast the trauma you have to cope with, and how any accomplishment also contains a seed of self-destruction. I recommend pairing this poem with a chilled glass of Sutter Home Moscato, followed by the Pet Shop Boys song 'Was it Worth It?' The poem is dedicated to Mark Bittman.”
—Jason Schneiderman
Jason Schneiderman
Jason Schneiderman is the author of Primary Source (Red Hen Press, 2016).