This is how I begin my day:
staggering to the bathroom,
staggering back out.

This is how I continue my day:
sitting before the television,
bored and more than a little scared.

This is how I finish my day:
staggering to the bathroom,
staggering back to lie down and sleep.

Every day begins and ends the same way.
The continuity in between stays
pretty much the same as well.

I write more or less the same way
from day to day — marveling at the vibrancy
of the vision behind my eyelids

until I at last open my eyes
and it’s all unchanged from the previous day.
I begin to settle from ecstasy to despair.

Still and all — there is hope, of course.
There is hope for change and disruption,
even for a simple change of clothes.

A tunic would be sweet; baggy linen trousers;
perhaps a small cap to hold my head together.
Or perhaps I’d just stay naked

and worry less about who can see me.
No one cares much, after all. I’d be a spirit
and a ghost and not care, I think —

anything except what I am: beginning
and ending the same way day to day;
marking the in-between with a sob or two.

Right now, for instance? At mid-day, mid-week?
Standard dress: sweatshirt, sweat pants, socks.
That’s pretty much it; that and fear, of course.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T