I've become a cleaning machine a dusting devil a floor-scrubbing maniac I use that powder with the bleach in it to clean the bathroom and I don't sniff any of it “it's not blow,” i say to myself and I sprinkle baking soda on the carpets wait 15 minutes like it says on the box exactly 15 I set the timer on the microwave just to be sure and then I vacuum it up I do this to remove the odour of our family from the carpets because no one wants to walk into a house that smells like people anymore There was a time, you know, when people's houses smelled like people, like warm moist bodies breathing warm moist air into an enclosed space, bodies that sweat in it and shit it in it fuck in it and cry in it Now we burn scented candles, plug devices into our wall sockets that emit natural fragrances created unnaturally: morning lilacs, fresh air, day by the sea let me ask you what does fresh air smell like really we don't like to smell other people and we especially don't like to smell ourselves so I scour that from my air I have a regimen that I follow, a different task each day to keep the smells away, to keep me from just sitting here alone I don't want to just sit there being here because I can't be somewhere else, can't do the work we need me to do don't know what to do So I clean can't yet clean within so he cleans without it's the psychologist's wet dream how unoriginal but that's how it is now two weeks in, two weeks without a deadline four deadlines later where am I going with this? What am I trying to get out here? Is this about the smells, is it about my little heavenly hell, is it about this thing in me, this wave in me that rolls in secret rolls grabs drags me away brings me back weaker fuck it this is going nowhere so I'm not going to take it there this is not going to be some i'm so depressed poem to add the million others If you're going to take one thing from this, remember: this was a poem about cleaning. period.
