take three hours of low-quality sleep,
and sprinkle lovingly with the midnight threats
of the racist and schizophrenic Madam Crazypants who lives on the next floor up.
for milder taste use the glowing red profanities that she hollers through the vents at the Mexicans who aren’t there.
for more spice use the white hot suicidal screams that saturate the night sky like streams of lava that shoot from Kilauea.
call the cops when she threatens to jump.
their lights and sirens will render waves of space
into solid panes of ice that smash into your head in surges.
go to school and simmer in silence until it’s execution time.
while the blood is still flowing from the bullet holes that you gave yourself,
pour on half an hour of "constructive" criticism from your professor
which will burn like lye or battery acid depending on the day of the week.
wash down with caffeine. simmer for three hours in a soulsucking class.
go home.
drink beer.
play Halo.
bury your anguished cries beneath your vice
and that secret codeine
and the bottle of wine you sequestered
and the cough syrup
which makes the world warm and salty and drippy and noodly
like a good bowl of pho.
let it sit in the oven
but don’t turn it on
and then pull it out on Monday
wrapped in a cotton blanket of cold *****
bleeding from the brain and fingers
empty of meaning.
and when the sun blows a fuse
well I guess then you can eat it.

What is the use of being on fire
if you can't share the warmth?

I sleep alone in a pile of ash.

What is the use of being a good swimmer
if you're too far underwater to come back up for air?

I'll rise clean soon if I'm not dead.

What is the use of speaking beautifully
if no one is listening?

I fall on deaf ears with clumsiness that would turn the drunkest men into ballet dancers.

What is the use in being useless?
What is the worth in being worthless?
Where is the end in a pain that feels endless?

Why do they care when I'm so careless?

I ask questions that have no answers,
and have answers to questions no one will ask.
If my life's goal was to be a soulsucking enigma,
then I'm all done now.  Riddle solved.
I could end the unknowable by doing the unthinkable.

But I'm not done.  I have two more things.
A heart that never did me any good,
and one more question with no answer.

How did you do it?
Cure the deafness,
make it to shore,
ember to inferno,
******* how?

I won't say I want to be you.
I couldn't without us laughing
an awkward silence
into oblivion.

But I marvel at your strength.
I want to prove them wrong
and have what I love
just like you proved them wrong
and have what I love.

You swept away the ash and I beg for your broom.

I'll make it out soon.
Until then,
try to love me anyway.
It's more than I deserve.