He chains black coffee and cigarettes,
knocking ash into last night's beer bottles
whilst Tom Waits is yowling from the stereo.
The Sunday morning is bright-white
like the bleached kitchen counters
that spread in uniform fashion
across the neighbourhood.
The window blinds him with the brilliance
of daylight, after staring too long at the screen.
Another chance to make a go at living,
but with the opportunity
of squandering it all the same.
Conscious that he was standing in his boxer shorts
and more so for the inevitable morning *******,
he checked for humanoid shapes in the allotments;
no Peeping Toms or curtain-twitchers,
only carcasses of Sunflowers
charred by November
and forming a Tunguskan fence.
In his incomplete state of a half-grown beard
and lack of full-time employment,
he found it quite impossible to think
that he was the present day culmination
of all humanity's endeavours.
Save for a relentless talent of self-destruction
and a penchant for giving oral ***,
he had long given up on a remarkable life,
instead savouring the aesthetic of smoke
curling by an open window,
or else watching the squirrels renovate their homes
to the patterns of the seasons.
A strain of survivors lead to his existence
but it didn't steel him in the slightest;
the most energetic thing he had done all week
was to kick a dog-chewed tennis ball
across the park in disgust at his life.
He kept a chart of happiness tacked to the wall
but he was always too depressed to fill it in.
Instead, there were books to be stared at
from their shelves, women to be thought of
but never spoken to;
a windowsill to lean against
and feel at one with the Earth.
Despite the cruelty of self-imposed detainment,
he had come to find a solace in stillness;
to slow his days to a glacial pace
with tense, quivering yoga poses,
and a disdain for daytime television.
During this hiatus for living he had finally
stopped biting the skin around his nails
to the point his fingers would bleed.
He was a man with a myriad of bad habits
and an maltreated disease,
but now the world was crashing around him
whilst he stood in the sidelines
as a disinterested spectator.
He has no stake in the outcome
of endless war and lottery tickets;
only the next collection of honest words,
and to where they might lead him.
C