MY FECKLESS JOURNEY

Simply sacrificing my life to try to breathe to live

and in exhalation all I ever truly had is burning still

until the wicks near end

finally sputters then dies the light within.

Not a tear is shed, no one cries not even I

though all see me walking shamed

through the realm physical,

balls cut off, flesh slashed and burned

by dignities last gasp there alive am I, dead, spurned.

I had no, have no choice to the time or place

when my sacrifice was forced upon me.

not that it matters much

for I could not fight it off anymore.

Nothing could stop the trickling

Damn even openly dying while living

everyone is Namaste attuned, self-pickling

as security dutifully hurries as they toss me out the door.

Oh blessed street, I suppose I was blessed

that the day I died. I was wearing a cheap suit

rather than my best. Honestly though?

Between the two I never noticed any difference.

My guess is that in living life’s fermentation

one shreds easier when my ass hit the cement.

Like me, the concrete where now so many reside,

had no pride of fabric or preference.

Oh this classroom life, adult education is learning

you only have so much time, the wick is burning

once that space has been sorely used, from your birth to…

as the flame sput—sput—sput—sputters out.

I am left with my savings paid in memories

of times when a life, my life, had value maybe even worth.

I am fully paid up, not off thank heavens.

Integrity mine owes no liens I desire.

Questions asked and answered

have become rhetorical outdated, uninspired.

I look in my talent show passbook,

to see if my life has been anything more than theatrical.

A tragic comedy for the entertainment of them

who once owned me who—

as soon as I owed them nothing more

threw me away, put me in a living prison

but smelted down the only key to the door.

I could take my keen edged K-Bar

or even my tiny Swiss Steel pocket knife

slit my throat, end it, let go my loose grip on sanity

but I keep foolishly neglecting the noose and rope

for I yet may have some star to see

on which I could place a wee tiny bit

of the little I’ve stashed away of my hope.

© M Durfee

6/13/13