Bite Down

Sitting in the almost-dark
with my hands so cold
I can barely move them
over the keys.

Sky looks like rain and the lamps
look like mockery of me, of hope;
this screen looks like more of the same.
Makes me want to stop this nonsense.

Such a bald sense of darkness.
Such a bald head that won’t grow hair
like it used to; my head’s as dark
as this sky. I bet I could step outside

and blend right in. Disappear
into the falling temperature.
Stop writing, stop breathing, just stop.
Fall with the mercury into the cold.

But there’s something inside
that will not release me, will not
let me fade — not just yet.
Each day there’s one small reason

to stay here. (Right now, of course,
I can’t think of one,
large or small,
but there has to be one.)

I remember
a book I read
when I was younger,
much younger than this;

someone in the pages
talked to a man about biting down on
tinfoil; how it hurt like hell but still he bit down,
every time he found some in there

in his mouth, between his cowering teeth.
So I bite down myself just thinking about it
and wince from the exquisite pain;
no tinfoil in there but still in agony

from the grey sky, the soon-to-be
hairless head. There’s something in here
I’ve got to figure out and it seems to be
dead set against the mind of a man,

but I keep trying — call it what you will.
Stupid, stubborn, senseless — all of them work.
I call it “hope.” I call it until it answers
to one name or another.

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