Taste Of Failure

Apparently,
failure is delicious;
so many of my hungry neighbors
seem to wait for it to show up
then dive upon it open-mouthed,
wet-jawed.

I can’t share that appetite,
perhaps because there have been
so many times when my own tongue
on my own skin caught a trace
of that flavor, and I looked up
and saw myself as prey.

The failures start screaming
as the raveners approach.
I do my best to get between them
but then I wake up. There’s a
taste in my mouth that’s worse
than normal, or maybe it is normal.