Couéism

Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
I am not a waffler. Syrup and butter slide off me.
Unedged, whole, my face is what it is. Do not
be deceived: neither am I a pancake.
Every day in every way I am getting butter and butter.
You can hold my voice in your hands: a stick of coal.
Some compounds sink deep into the skin, into the organs;
they claim not only your life, but inhabit your death.
Every day in every way I am getting better at bitter.
Spoke only when spoken to. Only with those eyes
upon me did I move. Here’s a trick I use:
You can stand in for you when you are not there.
Every day in every way you are getting better and better.
Alone I am an encyclopedia filling with definitions
for air that will never be breathed. Father
Luca, I keep counsel among myself.
Every day in every way I am become lender and debtor.
Émile Coué gives the answer: despite your body,
to spite your mind, you repeat key phrases, lips
caressing your new life, the narrowing sound.
Every day with every say I am getting better and better.
Even when wrong I doggedly hold on – so saying
we can fly, I throw us from the window
for that moment in the air, that moment in the air
Every day in every way I am singing ether through ether.

Andrew Kozma
“Couéism” appeared in DIAGRAM, Issue 6.5.