The check comes
Clean, thin and crisp

Stamped in the rectangle
Are the numbers
That are either too high
Or too low

I stare at the lines that make these numerical symbols
Depressed and curious and foaming at the soul
I inhale in bubbled air and flame retardant love
Weighed down by how much control these lines have

Dish washer's bend their backs like they always have
Their eyes waxen and woeful staining a cracked mirror
Echoes of the ten o'clock news and banter over power lines
Force me to recall simpler times when youth was not so fleeting

Clean
In my back right pocket
The salt of the ocean
Burrows into my hair

Tempered face with lines resembling ravines
She chose not to play the radio so we could talk
In the back of my mind
I envision
                 Miles
                          And miles
                                            And miles

Of backed up cars
All stuck
For the same reason

Madness can only be accepted by the many if framed Perfectly

Cream spilt moon
Mother Nature's con
Ocean blue hue
Dangling forfeit desert
Snow-covered saloon

Living and breathing
Bending and dying

Unable to tell the difference
Between Midnight and

Noon

There, the money is put away
Taken out of the right
Into a place where venality is imbued
With congratulatory undertones
Out of sight

More numbers, more signs, more papers
All to be saved up
Used only for emergencies later

The payday
The big pay off
All the "Just another day" sayings
Burning to ash
To the wake-up call of a ******* alarm clock

What is next?