feeling the shittiest

You’re a hungry fool,

and I, the simple man’s psalm,

the prophecy of the utero-cave, 

the umbilical vines

in which I’ve trapped my pen and hands.

The next season that reminds you of

the closeness of your death

will be stuffed with blank holly

and cinderblocks.

But this...

is not a verse to make you think.

I’m hooked to this life, dangling from a doorway

Neither in nor out

a smoke signal away and yet I can’t start the fire

a simple leap up but this fatigued body holds me in place

this hairy slumping body holds itself together

seamlessly

the carpet set numbly against the floor

like my mother’s dinner on the table

the vapid lights of an aging city

again, again, repeat, again

I know not this language I speak.

How to begin the stories of my life. 

And then, how to begin the stories of others. 

Finally, if attainable, how to begin the stories of the made-up, the unreal, 

how to turn the empty space into life? 

It is the work for God only, 

to big bang this thing from question mark to pen. 

Smiling, bright, shining, blinking life has left me. 

I know you’re out there, friends, stripping your clothes off, 

while I pen you down but will never understand the precision 

you give to unraveling the straps that dangle from your shoulders, 

the halfhearted toss of a belt and shoes,
that comprehensive look you give to your lover, 

or to the mirror, or to anything that moves. 

I have resigned from the comprehensive; 

nothing can sum me up anymore except the curve in a cursive arc. 

I am a word in cursive, 

left to the uncertain precise emptiness of the blue line. 

I am the victim of white space. 

I am a thought monster. 

And you will never remember your drunken fits.