The visions blur like thick fog,
memories break into strobe-lit flashes.
The whole world exists in a flat line.
Troubled curiosity sits high in the throat
like a bad taste or a
hand around the neck.
You are ****** on the side of the road,
or the back of the bus on that
long ride home,
while the sunlight plays
judge/jury/executioner up on its
condescending throne, levying its light,
like punishment, upon you.

The world is a cruel place when
the late nights face the
early mornings eye to eye.

On the sidewalk you watch
cars pass, people pass,
the whole world moves in
that straight line forwards.
You bob your head in calm defeat.
On the bus the people don’t move,
but they appear to.
Mouths and lips and eyes and feet,
all containing no direction
except as the tires go.
You look at it all in quiet wonder.

There, with flash bang remembrance
and an intangible machine gun burst
drumming off your eyelids,
you lay on the pavement,
or against the window of the bus,
with memory a black din of noise and
half-formed images,
and wonder what it’s like to
be nothing at all.