you ever have one of those days where the world not only threatens to open its gaping maw and masticate you to mush but the world does open its gaping maw and sucks you down, kicking, punching, clawing at the spongy flesh of the world’s ribbed, greasy gullet, desperate to maintain your balance, but no, the world ain’t having that shit and the world gulps real big-like and forces you on your merry way and you come to rest in the world’s first belly, though it doesn’t look like any belly you’ve been in before but like a cardboard box sealed all around with camouflaged duct tape, belly juices a pool of moldy blue jello, other folks the world has swallowed today all around you, mad, lost, ill-prepared, and then that gooey gut shifts and you’re sliding again, getting pushed down a hole in the corner and fllffp! you’re plopped right into the world’s second belly and it’s like a party from 1977 up in there, disco ball strung by ligaments, reflecting rays from bio-luminescent nodules and you feel your skin peeling away, digested by the world, this ol’ hungry world, this grand ol’ hungry world whose second belly is an echo chamber of life’s pulsations, which induce in you gyrations you can’t control and though your ears are sliding from your head the world’s rhythms pound pound pound through you like a jackjackjackhammer and you try to find some respite from what’s beating and you lose your footing, slip and yes, you’re sliding again, sliding to belly number three and the silence there brings tears to your eyes which parade down your skinless face stinging something fierce, prompting you to cuss out loud but your tongue falls out on the white floor in front of you and then the rest of your soft, luscious, tender, fresh, juicy, tight, hot body sloughs off your skeleton and though you’d like to think, “dammit all to hell,” your brain just liquefied so that thought’s spreading all over the floor and you’re a walking model of bony absolution tiptoeing around this vast white belly with the other osteopariahs until you lose all volition and tumble into a perfectly-placed hole, waiting just for you, expressway to belly four, and what are you now but a pile of bones pretending you’re human and that’s all right, that’s ok, that’s all anything is in the fourth belly of the world but all too soon your calcified existence also breaks down because the world needs nutrition, the world needs three square meals a day, and the world doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase “one of those days.”