The bricks of the human world are dying.

Others are being born as we speak,
But others still are dying
And the world is dying and changing with them.

Some are dying in bleachy hospital rooms
With blood-smeared hands,
But others are not.

The world is dying in fields
With a back lain-upon by fresh harvest,
Hands caked in loam
And a face creased by sun.

The world is dying in factories,
Gazing its brains out through the smog
And over clamorous machinery,
Bleeding tears into cheap t-shirts.

The world is dying in offices,
Dreams pulled out and splayed about
Like a salmon's innards
Upon the printer-paper butcher board.

The world is dying at sea,
With salt-crusted hair
And burning, split calluses,
Beety droplets staining the passive blue.

The world dies in death:
In rusty mill bones
And hollow farms
Rented out to memories.

The world is dying,
And where is the ceremony?
Where is the procession?
Where is the twenty-one gun salute?

The world goes into many graves
Packaged in a homemade box,
With Duty fulfilled
And not a single note of "Taps".

It usually takes about 5 minutes for me to blackout
while sitting on the black leather on the black tar
going 60 fully there but not quite fully aware.
This is my third autopilot and so far
I like her the most because she has the biggest eyes
though she sometimes glitches and needs to be reminded
that even at a beety red light there’s no need to
jot down an idea for a poem, or even world peace
(The two are not the same.)

So while the road lines melt into a
side swept long exposure dizzy photograph, but
like the ones that move in the Harry Potter movies
and I assume the books too, the books I would
definitely like but probably will never actually read,
the photographs like living live photos seemingly
sweet memories coming to life but in reality
a horrifying knock off of the fly on the wall
except this fly could be your late grandma
in portrait mode or an angsty teen musician
stuck in a teeny-bopper magazine poster, and
as I am seeing all of these animated flipbooks
I realize, just maybe, in another life I was
definitely a Cher imposter but with a
better impression than she herself.

Then a singing sea nymph and even those cursed by her,
one of Cleopatra’s snakes, stuck in a life
without limbs, let alone thumbs
but a mouth to devour and ultimately,
importantly, perfect teeth.
I am not fit to be a pet still though, to be forced to
always listen and never speak never fully
understood, except, not being a pet
doesn’t even mean I have done or
not done those things I am just always
done and not done, undone and now done
with this drive and unsure of
just quite how I made it here, I believe, alive.