She’s addicted to repeating
glances at her Garmin—resting heart rate, 
miles per hour, body battery, calories granted
or consumed. She feeds her need to manipulate
steps so that numbers are rounded up
for luck in borders and length in miles.

The colorful bar graphs, the weekly trends
can never count the words released with speech
or legibly written—tightly arranged or broken 
into fragments. She has no tally of layer cakes 
baked from scratch or salads tossed and dressed 
with vinegar. She lacks an almanac of annual 
flowers, cut then placed in vintage glass vases.

Proficiency grading has replaced traditional
GPA but a level 3 still signifies
a “B” and a level 1 leans toward failing. 
Distance comes in many versions
so too does absence. There is no unit 
up to the task of charting sorrow or measuring 
the deep end of mourning’s ocean.
                        

My half sister took to forest bathing thrice
daily to try to loosen the hold of heroin. She inhaled
the forest floor from a prone position. Fresh terpenes
traveled to her hypothalamus, then to her olfactory
cortex but the chambers of her heart pounded frantic
demanded a more manic hit—a more explosive timber.
She hoped to morph from her animal nature—to lose 

her cell membranes and gain cell walls in some quantum
weirdness involving unobserved particles. She wanted 
to exchange flesh with its cycles of wasted blood-rich 
lunar linings and hormonal anemia for cambium, tap roots
persistent deciduous leaf blades. She danced 
the twelve steps but couldn’t master the rhythm required. 
She could never accept the cardiac consequences 

of forgiveness. She belly-breathed the organic bottom 
notes of mushrooms and leaf litter, chanted mantras 
numbered emerald pine needles looking to extend 
the never-ending remainder of Pi. She arranged 
words into essays but her thesis statements 
were never clearly proven. The backspace 
and delete were incomplete. Repeating 

mistakes and tracking bruises left dark 
shadows and abrasions in the pulpy 
paper of her elbow. Each season, every hour 
she craved the silver shine of sharp 
fine gauge needles—bevel up, the tourniquet 
tight around her bicep. Her veins a ravenous shade
of green just between hemlock and frasier.