This Is the Body You Gave Me?

Millions of years of evolution.
Opposable thumbs.
Language.
Fire.
The wheel.
The polio vaccine.

And my body
sees a poplar tree
and just…
folds.

A single leaf flutters
in a gentle breeze,
and my immune system goes,
“THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

Suddenly I’m wheezing like a haunted accordion.
My face is leaking.
My soul is damp.
My dignity?
Cancelled.

I’m a biological miracle
with a 98% genetic overlap to apes
and yet I’m taken out
by air.

Air, Susan.
The barely visible exhale of a tree
and I’m on the couch
with tissues shoved up both nostrils
like a sad little walrus
praying for death
or antihistamines (ALL the antihistamines)
or both.

People say,
“Get outside! Touch grass!”
Buddy, if I touch grass,
I implode.

One pollen spore
and my respiratory system
hits the panic button
like I just snorted nuclear fallout.

God spent seven days creating the world
and zero minutes beta-testing my sinuses.

Was I a joke?
Was I the punchline?
Did an angel sneeze on me during production?

Because I have watched humanity
split atoms, land on the moon,
and build robots that write poetry—
and I still
cannot
walk past a poplar
without my body going full
Shakespearean death scene.

My ancestors outran wolves
and speared mammoths.
I take one whiff of spring
and cry because the air tastes yellow.

So thank you,
evolution.
Thank you, intelligent design.
Thank you, divine chaos.
For this glorious meat suit
that can recite poetry
but not coexist
with a tree.