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.