Hey, it's producer Micah Kilbahn. This spring, the slowdown team and I asked you to help us select for the

podcast, to send in poems that have helped you slow yourself down. In just a few days, we received

nearly 300 entries, we then chose just five submissions to share this week.

Here's today's community curator to share what special about their submission.

My name is Jean Hall-Galey.

I live in Woodrow, Washington.

This poem really fits the slowdown because it's dark and funny.

The first time you read it you can

understand everything it says and you can understand it at a certain level. But the

more you go back and read it and think about it, like it really has these dark

twisty turns that you're like, oh, almost that poem really about, which is something I love.

Love can heard. You're like, oh, that's sort of innocuous. And then you're like, is it innocuous?

What do we do for love?

Good depression.

I'm

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. My friend once said to me, I no longer think of Wolf Girl,

Wolf Girl, I replied.

She clarified.

Oh, that's the name I've given my ex.

You know, Wolf and Sheep's clothing, we laughed.

I heard a lightness in her voice, where before, for over a year, I heard pain and resentment. This person's deception and abandonment of my friend

cut deep. She lost a serious amount of weight and became reclusive.

...