In 2009, The american disaster film "2012" was released.
Preparing for "The End of The World" was easy.

A piece of cardboard at a Red Light.


"2012 The End Is Nigh, What's a dollar?"


We might as well have smiled, given a friendly wave,
honked our horns like we were passing the Freeport Flag Ladies.


In 2012, I was in high school with my first job.

I didn't care that In the twinkling of an eye,

we were gonna hear God's last trumpet.

On Rapture-Eve, I set out "Milk N' Cookies" for the "Left-behind"

I left next mornings outfit on the side of the road as if Angels abducted me ****-*** naked mid-stride

Turns out, the red light never turned green.

The "left-behind" kept breeding

and Hell on earth just kept recruiting

Now it's 2020,

The Freeport Flag Ladies are in Quarantine,

the signs have needles in our eyelids like mechanical spiders,

You can't even turn the news off now,

I pick it up at CVS Like a Controlled substance prescription.

They make you call in once a month to get it refilled.

Some how my amazing wife Amy and I

Not only survived the rapture,
we brought a brand new life into it.

For 10 days we were locked in a hospital

We never looked at the news.

The world melted away as we danced together

Waiting to meet our little miracle.

After Amy was whisked away for intensive surgery
and survived the most unspeakably amazing thing in the world
a nurse eventually grabbed me and asked if I wanted to meet my daughter,
I was guided to a baby table

with knobs, meters, heat lamps,

and on a tiny cushion

in a tiny plastic crib,

My daughter.


Sophia Naomi Mae Coulombe.


wide eyed

staring into my pupils

wiggling

perfect

Now we are home.

No nurses, no IV.

Somehow it feels like the end of the world and all it's chaos
was the best thing that has ever happened to us.

Everything happened exactly when it needed too.


We couldn't have had better timing

if God planned it.

It wasn't until today
When I realized that you can
Tell a story through only your eyes

This quarantine got me dizzy
Will someone help me
With a cup of hot coffee
        Or
              Should
        I
                               Go....... On
Being lazy..........
                   Lying..... on
       My bed
Starting at empty pages.....
Dabbed with ink
Of once beautiful memories.

My loneliness makes me taste like toothpaste
because over the course of my shame-polluted day,
regrets pile up like grime in my gums, and she
likes to pretend,
(hundreds of miles deep into the night),
that brushing my teeth for an extra two minutes or so
renders me finally clean, and
forgotten.

She makes me use the peppermint that stings, because
it’s easier for me to picture the rotten remains of my
ugly, fumbled words losing their sticky grip
on the insides of my cheeks,
dissolving in fizzles and bubbles and fire as if in
flavored acid.

My loneliness tastes like hair and
skin pulled taut over bent knees
because she imagines that her set of
tired, unwanted bones fit together
like an awkward origami cocoon enclosing,
(shrinking)
my repulsive, obtrusive body.

And she folds around me
despite the sharp, stabbing aches
in my curved spine and knotted appendages
because we have learned that her skeleton
is the only thing that will protect
me.

she finds that time is not linear
in the gospel-like gold and amber
that glaze the green poplar leaves
in her suburban summer evenings

what is she left to be?
she with a warrior's heart
but with legs in tired atrophy

at dusk the water ripples with silver-toned echoes
whispering mythical adventures and heroes
and the words churn and boil in her mythical blood
"I would rather be ashes than dust!"

what is she left to be?
she with a warrior's heart
but with legs in tired atrophy

every night still she stargazes through her ceiling
a coward's tears on her cheeks slowly peeling
courage like corn husks from her ancient soul
leaving her core shivering in the dust and dusty cold

what is she left to be?
she with a warrior's heart
freezes
with legs in tired atrophy

The gloaming reflection of mine
in the light of sunshine.
She stays close to me always
even after the sun lose its blaze.
She is the pitch black darkness
that stirs inside my mind of aloofness.
I wish someday I can hold thee
and thou art can heal me.

I feel the need to fill it all up,
my days, that is,
gather plans and gorge
on seamless social interactions,
slurping up smiles and gulping
down the cool liquid of laughter,
picking my teeth with the bare bones of boring conversation.
I’m an introvert, but time alone isn’t helping anymore.
Alone, I spiral. I starve.

What is the purpose?
Someone distract me from these things in my head called thoughts.
Nourish me, I am dying and I’m wanting it, too.
Please,
laugh until my stomach is so stuffed that I heave out another joke.
Talk until I bite my tongue and bleed, eagerly chewing, cheeks
hurting.

What neon emptiness has driven me here
to the all-you-can-eat buffet?
While I feast on my friends under these fluorescents
my shadows only wait.

As I was watching the clock,
the little gray one in the corner,
I thought I saw the hands falter
at one.

And when I blinked again,
the clock I could not see,
for it had blended in with
the night.

Time warp-wraps around me,
tendrils pulling my hair
and floating across
my eyes.

Like dragonfly wings,
an iridescent sheen
plays behind my eyelids
unfocused blur

But when I look in the periphery
I see my tangled self and
the short days blending
all together.

Like milky cataracts
quarantine is blinding.
And so begins
quarantime.