Modern Vertigo
Standing uncentered
At a canted angle-
Slanted in my frame of mind.
I can see a clear destination ahead.
All that empty, white space-
A long shot extended to the edges,
The scenery bleeding out before my eyes.
I'm boxed-in by all the possibilities.
Opportunity, sprawling and vast,
Compresses me in depressive formats,
Feeling out of focus-
A disjunctive cut blurring in and out-
As my reticle zooms
In choppy shots.
The sleek, stark status quo
Keeps me claustrophobic
As time and expectation come ever closer.
Almost simultaneously,
They move far from me,
Distant while I stand on the conveyor belt
That rolls me toward them.
I'm dizzy and nauseous,
More upset than my stomach
In the dysfunctional, disrupted inertia
Of my stationary position.
I'm light-headed,
But my thoughts are heavier and darker
As the floor tugs and jerks under my feet.
My speech slurs,
Slushing laterally
To the side, unbalanced,
Tipping, toppling over itself.
My vision, splitting,
Spins in a helix shape
Accelerating around the sharp turns.
I need to readjust myself.
This recurrent unsteadiness
Slingshots the world
In my saccadic lens.
In this modern vertigo,
I get my close-up
As I fall away.
poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
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