Swimming in the Air

One second
And another
And a third:
Three counts mentally numb,
A tired tongue amounting to being dumb.
Thoughts, impossible to grasp, slip away.
Mental relaxation is mental decay,
So sleep hard,
Like a whore a hundred times sexed,
Or a drug-addicted vagrant vexxed
With a thousand needle pricks
Now immune to the kicks of the high.
But inject to live low:
Stave off the moment where you die.

Eyes taking three seconds just to focus.
A magician living life in a passive dream.
So "hocus pocus", as it seems
Limbs are heavy and eyes are stinging
As the lifeless magician wades through the day,
Swimming.

A passive vessel,
Three seconds gone in a blink,
Succumbing to animalistic tendencies,
Submitting to instinct:
A zombie —
Not of death
But with the taste of sleep on breath,
And with the weak and quivering muscles
Of a fatigued phantom or ghast
Living three seconds in the past.