they don’t warn you about mornings like these
mornings when the sun doesn’t spread out like butter
when the newspaper smells like piss and the ants crawl all over the kitchen
when the bile is climbing up the rungs of that sandpaper slide you call your throat
and your head feels lopsided and like it’s filled with oatmeal and cabbage
they don’t tell you about that weasel squealing in your ears
or how you won’t be able to get any food down into your stomach
which churns and quakes in mad spasms of revolt
they don’t let you know just how tired you’ll get
tired of Wednesday afternoons
tired of weeks and months and years going by
tired of not being able to sleep at night
tired of television and rats
and a long succession of jobs
each worse and more tedious and mind-numbing than the last
they don’t speak of days to flush away like used toilet paper
rent checks bouncing and hair falling out and hope sputtering into panic and dread
they won’t tell you that most of the time you won’t feel blessed for just being alive
you won’t look up at the stars just for the hell of it
and getting out of bed will be a miracle on some days
on days that start off with mornings like these
when your life is just a hangnail waiting to be torn off by the world
when you don’t even have the motivation to make coffee
or wash a dish
or take out the trash
or listen to the hoarse quock of the black-crowned night heron
while you stumble around
dizzy and alone
searching for a cigarette
wondering how the hell things ever turned out like this
how all of that then could’ve led to this now
they don’t tell you all the ways the world can come up with to crush the life out of you
or the caged fury that melts into a headache behind your eyeballs
they won’t fill you in on the horror and the absolute empty ache in your gut
that comes along at the end of a week-long drunk
stirring the mush that is left of your brains into madness and despair
leaving you unable to count to ten or make a ham sandwich
they never warn you about the women who are kind enough to sleep with you
the ones who claw at your face with their fingernails
or empty your pockets for you while you’re passed out
they forget to mention that people will desert you
leaving you clutching a shredded paper bag that had been filled with your memories
they don’t ever say how much you’ll crave that first drink of the day
how you’ll need a few more to level out your head
and smack you back to where you want to be
heading out to join those who line the bars at mid-day
how you’ll lean against brick walls and parking meters and telephone poles
to smoke cigarettes in the shadows of tall buildings
waiting for something to happen
how you’ll go days without showering or brushing your teeth
or eating anything besides peanuts and potato chips
how easy it’ll be to piss your money away like this
that’s not something they go on to you about
instead they tell you to invest your money and buy a house
to do things like get married and have kids
they tell you to just go with the flow
to never question anything
to be one of the crowd
to watch and be entertained
to get along and be normal and well behaved
to buy things and to not think too hard about why
they tell you that you are inconsequential
that your life is merely some data on a chart
another statistic on a spreadsheet
just a speck in the thin slice of a pie chart
something to be marketed to
nothing more than a slight fluctuation of the stock market
not even a blip on the radar screen of commerce
and there are times when you find yourself believing them too
but then again
there are times when you might find yourself
riding a silver-smooth stallion in the rain
peering up at clouds mashed like thumbprints into the sky
missing the way you used to dream
like that
before all of this thrashing about in the midst of things
caught up with what was remaining of you
one morning when you’d stopped answering the phone and the door
and promptly finished you off
before you had a chance to begin
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