bitter poetry
is not worth it

let me tell you
I could write piles of it
but none of it would sound too good
my mind is
hidden wherever you last
touched it

I used to think that I wrote the best
when I was sad
I think now
that I don't understand sadness
sadness is an animal that doesn't come out in
daytime
or nighttime
sadness is a creature dressed in black
an empty chair
a half-drank cup of tea
a stoplight that never turns green

when you’ve been emptied out
like an animal that’s been bled for meat
and you’re hanging upside down
on a rack
ready to be devoured
you realize-
poetry won’t save you

my hands are close to touching the floor
nearly
but they can’t
so instead
my carcass hangs
I leave my body
I watch it being adjusted like a coat in a closet
swings back and forth,
like a child on bars in a playground.
I wonder when it will start rotting,
how long I have before I’m cured and cooked and
sliced into individual cuts
wonder whose mouth I’ll be entering
whose stomach
whose hands will serve me
if the blood will run off the plate.
if they were happy, would I feel their happiness?
if they were sad, would I feel that too?
I wonder
how it feels to be digested

or maybe
I won’t make it that far
and just be hanging
until pieces of me decay, fall to the floor
like dropped pennies from pockets
until I’m eaten away by
time and an
empty room

i’m not a bloodless animal
hanging on a rack
dead animals hanging on racks can’t write poetry
of course
but,
if they could

it wouldn’t be worth it, either
no,
it wouldn’t do them much good