Three Billion Beats

i.

Are the cicadas chirping louder?
Or are our ears growing sensitive?

Are the summers becoming hotter?
Or are we harder to cool?

ii.

The heart beats three billion times,
and yet we spend much of it

regretting it as if we spent most of it
watching the paint dry. We build

bricks to guard the evilness and
seek salvation from God.

It's not the blast of a trumpet, but when you
sip that Trader Joe's instant coffee,

look up to your crush's glance on summer break,
watch that teen eat alone at Olive Garden,

Or realize your very own father skipping his meals
for the sake of your own living,

the walls crumble brick by brick as if we
wasted. So, what's the point?

iii.

Even now, beneath the skin,
lives the softest part

behind the breastbone,
cartilage where

it meets the rib.
The space between two hands?