coarse language as an indicator of lack of self-awareness or lack of self-consciousness

you’ve been
there for four
months, still, upon
entering, occasionally,
unaccounted, the bright
smell of paint.

yesterday you
approached them, there
standing in their
group. you lightly
touched their shoulder,
you looked at
them as they
turned to you,
lamp-lit. everyone
else you ignored,
then, when
approaching, and
everyone else you
ignored, again, when
leaving. you, blurred
blank save
for the light, save
for the lamp.

they returned to
you again
that night, appearing
to you as two
distinct and separate
people, in
another of your
dreams of loss.
in the dream,
you, blurred,
blank, lit
by lamp,
were close to,
and then spun off
from, them. both
of them, which
is to say, only
one.

alone
with morning you
moved yourself
uncertainly
through emptied streets,
falling repeatedly
onto your feet.
recently you
were asked why,
with your
external locus of
control, you don’t
better manage your
mind. you think
it is likely
an issue of
differentiation,
that you do
not differentiate,
that the same
one
shows up as
two, that two
are always an
expression of
one.

it hasn’t snowed
now
in a month.
the snowbank
that blocked your
preferred path
has just
now
melted away.
in its place,
a thick slurried pile
of muddied stone.