I skip rope with mortality
We play hide and seek at least once a week
My favorite hiding spot is the bottom of a pill bottle
Or a carbon monoxide quartet played in b minor
Though She always finds me
I’m chastised for being weak
I always say She because She has me intrigued
But who is She to deny me the ease of eternal sleep
When in time I’ll see for myself that it’s a corrupted dream

In the sun I bloom in thralls of ecstasy
And a splendor unseen unless your eyes are on the childish setting
In this light I toil over a slowly rusting slinky
I marvel at its ebb and flow
Unbeknownst to its proper meaning
On the box reads “Life and Death” but to this it has no means to me
But the sun doesn’t shine forever
And soon its warmth will leave me to wither
Then that rusting slinky takes hold of me
Extreme with avarice so bitter
And no thoughts of ever leaving
To combat this I reach into my box of cigarette kisses
To extract a couple of sweetlings
A long draw of articulate death
While I listen to the tobacco weeping
Their cries against a moonlit sky
Marks the stay of a frivolous execution
Though I am not without disillusion
I can feel it in every breath
Just as a child believes they’ll always be free
I’ve acquiesced to a not so slow, slow death