Chalk

Chalk dust

Flakes from my fingers to my eyes,

As I rub the to-dos into lashes

And stare at the checkboxes for yesterday

Open like a balloon puffed up with

One too many moles of molecules.

Pressure and pop;

The molecules whiz out.

I buy a new balloon.

Fill it with just the right amount

of moles of molecules of atoms

Of nitrogen, oxygen, CO2,

And watch the chalk dust flutter alongside

As I try to hack it out of my respiratory system.

I think chalk might be fused into my veins.

Highlighters my nail polish,

And my blood

Is the ink of a thousand  pens.

One

After the other

Dries into stone until

Maybe someday

I can give a fuck about whoever Hammurabi is,

And why we wrote an essay about his tablet in the sixth grade.