Y’know,
when I had a job
I liked my job.
My HR job —

yeah, I was 
one of those.

I liked the problems,
I liked the people
at my job.

At my job
the bosses liked it when
I listened
and answered 
as they expected.

If I disagreed or took another tack
they called it “recreational arguing”
and dinged me on my review,
year after year,
for doing so.

A disrespectful thing to say —
as if I did not care, as if
this was a game to me — 

as if the day to day labor
of how to make lives better
during the third of a lifetime
people spend at work
was amusing, was not worth
consideration
from multiple angles.

They won. 
They won
a different game,
one I didn’t know
I was playing.

Years ago now,
all of that. Water 
over the top
of a failed dam.

I do not argue anymore
for game or love
or righteousness.
They taught me
how to play the real game —

the one where I sit
and wait in the dark.

I sit and think
of how to play the game.

I sit in the dark
even while 
the dark sits in me. 

the difference between
humans and other animals
is that we insist
on defining in detail
every difference between ourselves
and other animals.  

the difference between us
and other animals
is that we create charts
that show the differences
among wasps and hornets and bees,
another that does the same
for butterflies and moths.

wasps, hornets, bees,
butterflies, and moths already know
they are different from each other
and do not care.  
serene in their varied ways
of folding their wings, 
secure in their multifarious stings,
aware of what is required of them,
they are certain that they are
what they are, are not
what they are not.

the difference between humans
and other animals
is in how much we put into 
charting difference,
in how much we gain
from parsing it out.

the other animals
don’t need to work so hard at it.
they already know.

they already know us, as well.
they do not see our differences.
they see us as humans regardless of differences.

see how they side-eye us,
every one of us.
see how they sidle away
whenever any one of us
closes in.

If you go through that door
you will enter a room

already full
to the ceiling

that somehow
never stops filling, 

a mouth
that won’t spit, that only swallows.

That other door
in the far wall

opens
on an empty room.

I have seen people
going in there all day,

no one has come out.
The room is small and 

there’s no question about it:
it is empty. I wouldn’t

go in there. You
will not come out.

I don’t know
where those people went

and neither do you.
Do you want to risk 

vanishing? Perhaps
it’s better on the far side

of Whatever.
As for me — I stand

between these rooms.
I get to choose,

to comment, to advise;
my advice

does no good to others
as far as I can tell

and for myself
I will not choose. Why?

Go into the stuffed room
and try to breathe. Go into

the empty room and 
try to exist, or at least be seen,

then tell me why
I need to decide. 

While you stammer
I’ll try and come up

with a satisfactory name
for the room we’re in,

or maybe I will do
no such thing. Maybe

I’ll just keep its name
to myself.  Keep it safe

from everyone who insists
on choosing one door or the other.

I’m done with being
at all creative

It doesn’t pay in any way
even with the obvious
lack of financial incentive
known to all

But the emotional
and spiritual payoffs
that have been ascribed to it
are in truth nonexistent and

in this forest where the leaves
are nearly wealth and 
nearly perfect there is no exchange
as what is theirs remains theirs

and here I am with poems and 
sketches and of course
the odd guitar riff
Once again there is nothing
to be taken from this work

It is all about what you give
and what you pretend to receive

So while I do not object to giving
I must confess I’ve given much
and must conserve my remainder

because I’m certainly old enough 
to understand how little
I’m likely to truly receive

I have certainly had worse days 
and some of them felt like this one,
like the world was sneering at me
and my feeble attempts at competence
while also crushing every good moment
for others as well in a tempo of
damage increasing worldwide.

Here I am thinking I’m mired
in yet another catastrophe
that in the long run will be minimal
compared to what will be true misery
for so many others.

I should be thankful instead
for such small problems as these
that feel like knives now,
like scalpels cleaving into me.

I pull it together.
When this is done,
what will I have left?

Gratitude, resolve,
relief; I hope as well 
that if I am worthy

I can rest in the knowledge 
that I did my part 

to brush aside my own pain
and do what I could
to pull those less fortunate
from the teeth
of this sneering world.

Again upon rising I do the simple math
of how many steps I will need today
to get by and through without
drawing the wrong attention
from the right people.

I don’t care about them much as individuals
but I allow their gaze potency,
even when I can only imagine 
what of me it brings to their minds.

It was a good sleep, a good dreamless night,
then I woke to this fear as I often do.
I woke to the notion that I am a mistake,

and that this day will pile on
affirmations of that fact
until I fall again into the dark
and manage to forget
who I think I am.