my terrible imagination

From my huge coffee cup 
every time I drink deep 
I drink a slug. Because 
mid-pre-deep satisfaction 
sip - I think "a slug" "could
have fallen in there, and 
be drowning or drowned 
and poached besides, from 
the lingering heat. Oh opaque
dark surface tension of coffee 
bitterly delicious, unsweet, 
uncreamed - would you be 
so foul as to hide a slug 
or a bug from me, by 
your innocent physical 
optical properties? It 

would brush my lips
an invisible heaviness
in suspense! And cause me 
to go "EUH" like that one 
beloved ex-beloved of mine 
used to love, but dread to hear

the cause. I imagine my hand 
involuntarily flung away from 
my head flung the other way, while 
my poor body - caught without 
training or instruction, specifically 
pulled its ace spasmodic jerk 
recovery move - and my poor coffee! 
Flown all over, cup still falling in 
slow motion, beyond recovery - 

it will be dashed to bits 
and the slug will crawl out 

however, this is no news to me. 
I live like this. Every time coming 
in from the patio, the ersatz French 
windows, to be navigated with three 
things and two hands, it all goes sly 
on me. One thing tumbles then I
in deft reaction send all things
flying and hitting and bouncing
or breaking, as usual, as always.
But not yet. Always not yet 
it didn't happen yet so - may 
not be so inexorable, after all. 
We'll see. "HANDLE IT!"
sometimes I even say aloud. 
In affirmation, a command.  
Physical interaction with reality
daunts in mind - yet easy 
in practice! Forewarned

is forearmed. And with my 
imaginary and highly-trained 
four arms I manage all tasks 
with ease and grace, prompted by
a galvanizing flash of mismanagement 

- a premonition like a superpower. 
I love it, it saves me in the nigh-barreling
down future moment (which in the event,
misses by miles); alarms, dismays me
and saddens me in the present; and does
nothing at all to me in the past. How could it?
The past is made of what futures hit. This 

was another sweet miss, guidance 
systems clicking and flying on all 
cylinders, rotating and pounding 
in air, engineless and uncoordinated
but flawless in operation, "flaw" 
being hard to conceive in such 
chance unplanned undesigning ops. In close 

conversation now

with some withsome one who matters.
They say something, and of course,
my response is almost unimaginable horror 
and dread and regret food and fuel and I SAID
IT - to me, I did, it's obvious I did - 
the original hypothetical immersion
specialist am I, I am and I CAN FEEL
IT I said it

and I can feel why I did.
I don't know WHY why, but
I can feel why. Of course I would
say a thing like that, yet I can already
foresee such consequence. The fall in their eyes 
has found me out.

I am this terrible 
thing you know.
They now know. 

It is not pleasant, but due to canny
foresight and acumen it can be yet
averted by special means. In the nick
of this split stretched instance I step back 
soul ripping free from my fleshy skinny
clothesy back without rending anything
material, assume kung fu soul stance
and SNAP THAT NECK - my own neck, 
the neck of the offending one - from behind! 

Such relief and release. You jerk 
I judge, richly and with deep, dark 
tragic sad scorn, for - he was a good 
boy, once. 

Mischance averted like clockwork. 

Nobody's really better at this than I, 
as far as I know. I'd be curious to know, 
if they are. If they aren't, I'll know the reason
why, and it's one of my favorite things about
me really, in a sense. The coping thriving defense
mechanism I inhabit and expand to become 
when imagination threatens 

is fulsome and fearsome in one. Scary. 

I can PREVENT MYSELF suddenly 
and without cause dropping way too much
stuff I carry, by the merest laser-locked 
action focus of hard, paid attention 
clicked in. Taking over. Impressive

Oh, really? I never found it so. I deal
with it out of hand. Out of hand, out
of mind I say. "Oh, 

it was nothing."