Limping into Night

the couch the crutch
               my hanging leg

the pillow the bed
               my empty stomach

the day the night
               my tired old head

Home

winter
my broken knee

it's too cold to read outside
and
my cat glances up at me

we both sweat in the apartment's heat

sigh gladly
when I open the window

ignore the rain drops
splash on the sill

William Tell

my shaved legs,
goosebumped from the cold,
become lost to me each day,
like my atrophied body,
hunched with worry for my world,
ages beyond my desire;

won't they leave my sagging form
alone?
Won't they?

gaunt and ghastly
misshapen,
I've eaten my own flesh,

can't they see I wish to die
peacefully?

what more is there left to be done?

a failed attempt to remain removed,

but,

I've no bones.

Babe in the night

the straight blue line in the night, I remember,
the fall, stiff metal, sagging skin, weakened bones,
a voice in the cold shadows come through the chill,
a body a heap of faded memory, a fogged addled mind,
the first glimpse into dying, the lamb leaps to escape.

Security Footage

in my stomach
what now has been my world
two weeks now removed;

I am in an effort,
I am to decode myself,

I will rid myself of all shame.

today I left the house without my hat
I was sweating

did you know I am going bald?

where were all the eyes watching?

there were none that noticed any difference
I was passed back and forth
my cat doesn't know what to think of me.

I have become an imposition on myself

many times I have thought these things
these unreal unreality things

is it possible I am an invention?

if so,
how long until I die?

if so,
is this my answer to life. no,
this is my response.

where have the things I have thought gone?

they have gone
where I have no things
and things is a word I use to mean
nothing and nothing is
just a thing a word in a line
I have placed where others
are left and others will follow.

my right leg hasn't touched a floor in 2 weeks

sound is like this shower

make believe rain

I haven't had in days

when I imagine gray skies

in the afternoon

alternating to blue skies

when I wake

and drop these pills,

the ice therapy lasts 20 minutes,

I can't count past 10 without drifting

and it feels like some

other clear daydream day

before I wake, maybe it's

the length of a television 

program broken 

by commercial advertisements,

these are the most important questions at this time;

and with that it isn't clear if I'm

some sorry cripple scribbling 

on the back of his hand
counting off
one
two

Maintenance

I have covered this ground with tired legs

not much has changed, nor has it remained the same

there were strings I mended, re-tied along the way

many were frail and so left ignored to atrophy

there were barriers constructed

mercurial bridges, flat tires, orange arrows

and the road,

two white lines, one yellow

only ran one way

Oxy

frame by frame

your life escapes me

little white pill

many mashed words in a
mixer like mom's 1950
powder blue or green
whatever my mind
sticks to whatever
memory pops out

whatever color smells right

like flour
wisps in sunlit circles
and by the time I write this
I am 30 years old
confined to my bed

in pain

high

higher still

too weak to resist the next four hours