| to do list |
get up, go to work, pay the bills (always late),
keep up with family, clean the house, errands,
write emails (always late, very late) so people know you still care,
but never enough to get close because that's when you get hurt.
go out and take pictures of abandoned things,
of half-demolished asylums, amusement parks, schools,
naval training academies, power plants, houses, farms, stockyards,
furnaces, factories, refineries, distilleries, hospitals, prisons -
places that reek of sadness, of loneliness, of decay.
get lacerations, get stitches, get tetanus shot, repeat.
keep going, every day another site gets destroyed. no time for rest.
look for new job, print photos, contact galleries, update website,
going nowhere, keep pushing, no end in sight.
edit photos, only 14,000 left to go and still more every week,
like everything, get further and further behind
watch as outside world gets further and further away.
try to sleep, instead think of things that need done.
go to gym, get groceries, cat maintenance, car maintenance,
all to what end? to do them again.
work on online degree, get haircut, return phone calls,
but something is dwindling, fading, missing.
try to move more, think less. escape the ache.
apologize again and again to loved ones
for falling ever deeper into something horrible -
like rusty machinery sinking beneath the surface of brackish water.
somehow getting trapped in something that was supposed to free you.
look again through broken windows at the green world so far away.
somewhere there's a perfect picture, an answer, a reason
maybe down in that basement, maybe perched up in that crane
climb the cliff to get there, fight off the mosquitoes, ignore the spiders,
keep alert, keep searching, keep going, don't look down (or up)
it has to be there.
it has to.
keep up with family, clean the house, errands,
write emails (always late, very late) so people know you still care,
but never enough to get close because that's when you get hurt.
go out and take pictures of abandoned things,
of half-demolished asylums, amusement parks, schools,
naval training academies, power plants, houses, farms, stockyards,
furnaces, factories, refineries, distilleries, hospitals, prisons -
places that reek of sadness, of loneliness, of decay.
get lacerations, get stitches, get tetanus shot, repeat.
keep going, every day another site gets destroyed. no time for rest.
look for new job, print photos, contact galleries, update website,
going nowhere, keep pushing, no end in sight.
edit photos, only 14,000 left to go and still more every week,
like everything, get further and further behind
watch as outside world gets further and further away.
try to sleep, instead think of things that need done.
go to gym, get groceries, cat maintenance, car maintenance,
all to what end? to do them again.
work on online degree, get haircut, return phone calls,
but something is dwindling, fading, missing.
try to move more, think less. escape the ache.
apologize again and again to loved ones
for falling ever deeper into something horrible -
like rusty machinery sinking beneath the surface of brackish water.
somehow getting trapped in something that was supposed to free you.
look again through broken windows at the green world so far away.
somewhere there's a perfect picture, an answer, a reason
maybe down in that basement, maybe perched up in that crane
climb the cliff to get there, fight off the mosquitoes, ignore the spiders,
keep alert, keep searching, keep going, don't look down (or up)
it has to be there.
it has to.
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