for every one word
of high spirited wishes,
i'm spitting on my shoes and
clicking my gums against my teeth,
these markers of good hope
are gonna kill me.

eight bucks an hour,
twenty hours a week.
no food. no drink. no weed.
four cigarettes. three bills.
rent on the twentieth,
credit on the first.
no help.

no sex.
no sex.
no sex.

three people left.
hungary, ohio, louisiana.
they're gone.

three fights.
three men.
three different reasons.
bad terms.
no apologies.

break-down?
final straw?
agonizing cave of the camel's back?

everyone seems happy.
settled.
engaged, even.

i'm broke, and wrought, and starving.
ugly and helpless.
wearing thin and defensive.

worst maybe
is i cry out sometimes
for something, someone

and the room vibrates back
the nothingness of silence.

the only arms i know now
are my own and
try as i might
to reassure my own desperation,
they just can't clutch my own body
and make it better.

09/11/2007

Posted on 09/11/2007
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer