"Like John Said..."

I’ve got a full-time cancer job
And stress hormones in my brainstem.
I’ve got frozen tundra desert feet;
They slip out from under me in any stance I try.
Like John said, “A workin’ class hero is sumthin to be.”
I sense stimuli through icy foggy lenses.
My love is filtered through my liver.
I’m a slumbering, lumbering lungfish:
I never exhale fully, and I poise myself mid-breath half the time.
Like John said, “A workin’ class hero is sumthin to be.”
I’m dragging nine bowling balls behind me,
Chained to every extension from my trunk.
I’ve got a soldering iron, I could conceivably melt them off,
But the pain and struggle of untangling my mental manacles is too much...
I wouldn’t know how to do without these fetters and tethers...
And besides,
It’s taken my whole life
To be this good
At what I do.