“Nothing” is noxious.
Idle spaces that bleed are
Loose threads on hemlines.
Air used to poison.
But you can’t teach fish to walk.
Just to swim faster.
Everyone succumbs.
I’m just choosing what kills me.
Won’t that make martyrs?
The hurt of the climb:
The matter most convened on
By feet and their minds.
Both are intimate
With smiling at the next hill.
Because, what’s one more?
The fever weather.
Shower drains clogged by black specks.
Inventing more cars.
They make you wonder,
Why you ever wished to stop
Two minutes later.
Layla Abdul is a 15-year-old future novelist and screenwriter. She enjoys sorting inanimate objects into Hogwarts houses and watching the same five SNL skits over and over. This is, hopefully, her first of many publications.