malaise

Orange. Green. The blue bursts unpredictably across the square
the 28th forms an X only because its neighbors do
(inference by association)
you have to toss that marker, felt tip crusty with age,
one more survivor of the nine-year-old bunch
bites the dust.

Vague recollections of wandering the aisles under
fluorescent lights, finding one hundred colors, consuming,
adding them to a black canvas bag of paints and origami paper
things collecting dust and cobwebs and tiny tumbleweeds of hair
things intermittently resurrected
things let go: there, but no longer part of your life.

Thick orange like the skin of a clementine
has been your weapon of choice for this countdown
with no endpoint
and the bold lines simply remind you
that time drones on and on and the present
offers a brighter source of hope
than the future.