She said it again,
So I repeated myself too,
This time with the

"What"

In "What did you say?"

With the strongest
Emphasis
I could muster.

She's saying it again,
And I still have no clue
Why she would **** in
Like Colonel Custer
Did to the Indians.

I bid her adieu,
And left her to wonder
What my answer could've been
If she didn't adjust her
Opinions based on
Her audience.

But anyway....
The fraudulents
Won't go away.

They hide behind me,
Trying to scam me,
Like I'd just walk blindly
Into a ****
Double whammy
Or something.

That thumping.
That thumping.

It's chronic,
And constantly bumping
Against this cage.

My patience is thinning
With each year I age,
Leaving me feeling
Like Greenland.

Is it so much to ask
For new beginnings?

A different page?

Anything other than
Feeling the same?

I suppose that it is,
And I just have to accept
That I'm asleep in a grave,
And all that I see,
All that I feel,
All that I know
Are all that's left.
The last static spasms
Of a decomposing mind.

I saw my sister today,
We got lunch at Union Station.
It's been years,
So I noticed the changes
In how she looks,
How she acts,
How she reacts to my
Shortcomings as a brother.

I told her to think of
Everyone she knows,
Or has known,
Or will know,
Or has seen
In person.

On a screen.

In a picture.

From a moving car.

In a dream.

I told her to think of all these people
Who have lives, and credit cards, and vacations, and stressors, and morning showers.
I told her they're all dead.
They are gone, forever,
And never coming back.

Worm food.

Spirits.

Contradictions.

I told her we are all dead,
And our imagined lives
Are just contrived efforts
To reconcile that truth
With ourselves.

All this empty time,
The moments that
Happen over and over
Every day
That we cannot pin down
Or really remember,
Except when they're happening,

Like walking up the escalator
From the subway,

Or making some *******
A ****** sandwich at work,

Or eating breakfast,

Or riding the elevator
Up to your floor,

Or taking a ****,

Or feeding the cat,

All these moments that happen so frequently and uneventfully
That it's as if they don't happen at all,
They're just static electricity
Discharging in a rotting brain.

Last ditch efforts to maintain
A sense of order,
A coping mechanism for the
Emptiness where God should be,
Filler to hide the reality
That nothing is happening,
That nothing is reality.

I told her we can
Fill that space with
Whatever we want,
That death is what you make it,
It's your death to live,
Your own make-believe
Joys and sorrows.

With a furrowed brow,
She didn't say anything
Until she asked for the check,
And said she had a bus to catch.

I said good luck with the baby,
I'll babysit when it's born,
If you want me to.