The problem with being stuck in perpetual motion
Is that you never get the chance to slow down
And clean out the old artifacts of your life.
The empty soda can stuck underneath the passenger seat.
Last week's history assignment on the floor, gathering more
Dust and dirt, trampled under life that has since passed.
A piece of popcorn remaining in a couch cushion for months
Long after the kernel has been dug out from your gummy jaw.
Those dead vegetables in the garden, well past ripe, bent and rotten
Waiting for decomposition before the first frost.
The vacuum bag's still full from last spring's cleaning; the lint:
a now petrified stratum among layers of other neglected maintenance.
New cobwebs form among boxes of your adolescence;
Spiders find life in the lowest levels of prioritization.