the coffee’s burnt again  
and the cat’s staring like it knows  
I haven’t cried in six years  
but I’ve been leaking in other ways
through the fridge light,  
through the cracks in the drywall,  
through the way I say “fine”  
when I mean “I’m rotting.”

the mailman dropped another envelope  
with no name, just a whisper  
and I thought maybe it was time  
to bury the version of me  
that still believed in clean slates  
and women who don’t flinch  
when you say you write poems.

I’m overdue for a funeral  
but nobody wants to dig  
unless there’s a paycheck  
or a priest involved  
and I don’t believe in either.

the barstool still remembers my spine  
and the bartender’s got a face  
like a broken clock
always stuck at 2:17 a.m.  
when the jukebox plays Sinatra  
and the drunks pretend  
they’re philosophers.

I tried to write an obituary  
for the part of me that used to care  
but the pen ran out  
and the paper laughed.

so I lit a cigarette  
and gave the ashes a name.