velvetteen

 the sky is thick and soft and deeper blue

than cheating bruises. battering sunlight

into the smell of diesel and high blood 

pressure meds. wobbling thru the dark house

on feet that want to retire, i wanted to write

something positive, but it's like i'm too 

fatigued to care any more. about any of it.

if the ache in my soles , my hip, my shoulderrs

subsides enough to sleep, that's my happy place.

if i get more than 4 hours straight, i might even

dream again, so i can remember why it was

i thought a long life might be better than 

the good looking corpse theory.

it's not like i  miss anything either, except

maybe the ocean this summer. even then

when i did go, i didn't stay long. 

what do i fear? choking on my own shit.

sepsis. the sudden exhalation of my stent. 

i'm too young for that shit, they say, but hey

ten years off my life every year i've smoked

and i can't imagine living to be like, 120. 

that feels like it would be a crime against me.

watching the last of the glacier melt, stumbling

on these petty feet from the encroaching shore

along a refugee road piled with skeleton's pasts. 

it's enough for me to have imagined how it will be.

i want leave the impossible up to others to encounter. 

everytime i write now it's like a song on alt radio,

singing deathlove songs. could be depression,but it 

seems pretty real.just need to shower  off

with a bit of that ol aushwitz ale so everything

can be sanitized like a last night's dinner table

at the restaurant under masks. 

meh.

 tbey say mental health's taken a hit

all over. it's the lack of dreams, the way

they've turned into nightmares 

treasures to trash.