the collapse

I know love is all that is left, but it is

an explicit pain; the life I have enjoyed 

is not my own every step the snap of 

someone else’s vertebrae every morning

an overwhelming shame in this complacency.

I could tell you tales one day, talk of

primordial decadence and despairing

canned soup swamps lit with LED light

the trees singing like slugs when your eyes open

you will see how they reach for each other,

how they want it so easily.

I will only speak on matters 

of the porch and watching a mountain bend 

the birds whistling over the moors

plastic bags rustling like footsteps

craning necks and ugly skin 

a sleepless night shivering in a wired chair

the grasses pass the wind back and forth.

I feel nothing but cowardly, and sick.

I beg for a way forward.