Suddenly, out of nowhere
a switch, a vital switch, somewhere beyond my reach, turns
off
the light is gone
I’m an old, haunted house
ramshackle, dark and spooky
my life is an old tasteless gum, I can’t stop chewing
my sadness comes down on me, like a garbage tsunami
like the shock of bumping into the one person I’m trying to
avoid
it doesn’t matter how nice the weather is
or how many “nice” people stop by my office to say hello
there isn’t anything a head, but mouths,
gnawing, persisting mouths, gnashing, yellowing, jittery toothed
mouths. Clanking shoes, rattling keys, emotionally crippling ringtones,
and laughter, loud and patronizing
I can’t wait for the day to end, to put on my worn-out grey t-shirt,
and fall into the nothingness of sleep, but my dreams are torturous, I wake to my heart thudding like sneakers in a dryer. I can’t wait for the night
to end, for the dizzying, monotonous merry-go-round of day to shackle me once
more
I want to hold on to something; an idea, a dream, a feeling,
a memory, a song, a prospect, something I can touch, something with meaning,
with direction; the tattered flag relentlessly flapping in the wind, the dove
in search of her mate in the sanctity of mosque domes
instead, I contemplate this defeating journey of loss. Since birth,
all beloved things taken from us, all spiteful things shoved inside us.
