We used to watch our lives together
then you got tired of the show
yet you wanted to keep up with the story
so you downloaded my life on audiobook
narrated by my friends and family
cropping out sections to protect themselves
skipping chapters to give you the plot points
you get the fan edit of my life
and critique a children’s book.

Childhood chills
sledding down hills
adrenaline adventure
barrel to the bottom
sensation celebration
reluctant realization
arduous climb back
ascending again
legs languid
exhausting escalator
planting a flag at the peak
finding breath in fresh air
inspecting the landscape
made for more
hills become mountains
formula for faster
avalanche astronaut
garnering Gs
the bottom bottoms out
cavernous canyon
can’t climb back
ground too uneasy
shifting environment
hazards harass
some keep sledding.

Submarine sailing
subaqueous submersion
floating through darkness
resisting radar
circumnavigating sonar
avoiding armada armageddon
torpedoes armed already
silent running stealth mode
eliminating unnecessary sound
surveilling would-be attackers.

Submarine suffering
sapphire scenery brings beauty
obscuring obsidian vanishes viewing
blinding black proximity paranoia
observing the unknown
behind titanium walls
contending colossal tentacles
extending from my kraken mind.

Caterpillar crawl
underwater undulation
supplies sparse
a city is needed
shore seems nice
party port
reconnaissance recognized
rejection redeployed
pebbles tossed in the ocean
sink to the bottom
but never die
and start submarine sailing.

White *****, red spikes,
flight stalled, death blight,
tight walls, bed bites,
night falls, headlights
burn in my brain
I learn from the pain
and my burdensome shame
that this quarantine game
feels horribly same
to life in my lane.

Everyone wears masks
everything is sanitized
I have one simple task
and it’s my ****** demise
while the planet cries
I stand aside
infantilized.

I hide in my holler
counting my dollars
counting on scholars
to make me taller
but for each one that builds me up
there are three to cut me down
so I’ll drink from their cup
and hand them their crown.

If I go outside I’m browbeaten
but I feel boxed in
from the callous crowds’ treatment
pulling my **** skin
promising it’s not spin
until their battlebot wins
then their cattle **** grin
spreads like coronavirus kin.

So I sit here homicidal
inside my domicile
thinking God is vile
for this awful trial
that some call a pandemic
but it seems like my existence
where I look for a grand medic
but only find social distance.

I live out of a shopping cart
and sleep in a broken down car
I pray for a stopping heart
to end this life where I starve.

I’m outdoors people
because I ignored the steeple
and implored what’s evil
by sporting a needle.

I try to keep my windows up
in this lonely truck
but it gets hot as ****
and sometimes they get stuck
and I have to deal with bugs
that see me sleeping snug
and start reaping blood.

I can’t feel their biting tinge
while I’m sleeping off a binge
so mosquitoes feast on the unconscious
was it God who brought this
locust plague so noxious?
They eat my sleeping body
the way they eat the rotting.

The mosquitoes torpedo
into me like a needle
a million eels
poke into my skin
which has been unsealed
so they dive in
showing their hunger is real
and they’ll win
they cover my shins
and blanket my arms
their proboscis pins
build a blood farm
built on my harm.

I open my eyes
to my insect surprise
I detest these flies
covering my size
so I shake to try
scaring them from my sty.

A plume of black
lifts from my body
it’s blood I lack
to get them off me
so I’m left to their mercy
and they continue to hurt me
attacking en masse absurdly
eating the unworthy.

I feebly swat them away
while my body decays
I’m dispersing the fray
while hurting in waves
brought by a flood
of those that **** blood
I start to feel sick
but I guess I would anyway
when the needle sticks
this is the start of everyday.

The world is a waiting room
where we wait for the end
there is no ending to all the endings
the reception desk is located near the exit
in case of a fire
while the doctors sit in the back
arched over their notepads.

The waiting room is getting crowded
as the mosh pit inside
infects one another
jockeying for position
like horses racing to their stall.

The waiting room is getting hotter
from clients with essential oils
and patients with black lung
the air conditioning works overtime
eventually breaking
leaving us overheating—suffocating.

Sitting, staring into space
waiting in the flatline
watching decay repay
our waiting room ways
the building starts crumbling like a glacier
while we wait for its weight to fall upon us.

I close my eyes to find you there
and find despair
I open my eyes to see you’re not there
and find despair.

My house is an empty home
made of stone
without you in it
I become a cynic.

I look
and see nothing
so I shook
any feeling of loving.

Life is pain
life is sorrow
so I watch the rain
and pray for tomorrow.