Ordinary Person

Looking back on the silence  

that defined the last ten years,  

the stillness that echoed,  

the lifeless status quo  

like the arthritic five fingers 

of the first line of a terrible  

haiku, I wonder how I endured 

the passage of time, day shifting  

into another day without  

anything significant happening 

except perhaps blades of anxiety  

cutting deeper. I’ve lived like a  

hermit or worse, like a demon  

society exorcised and then confined 

to a gloomy dungeon. My tears 

are dry, my penitence a hollow 

whisper, my purpose washed away  

by ashen rivers. Everything’s grey  

and though I tell myself things  

will get better, those words are  

empty like the promises people 

make, light as a feather, blown  

away by the weakest zephyr.  

They could throw me in solitary 

confinement and it wouldn’t be  

a change. I already have nothing  

except my dull apartment,  

my brokenness, my medication,  

and my cigarettes. I don’t know how 

they do it, how they get out there  

and create a life because living  

to me is merely existing in shattered places  

where the trumpets play off-key,  

atonal, shrieky cacophonies  

and the stars above look like 

off-white, minuscule, cardboard  

cutouts reminding me of ugly  

ribbons on a bleached Christmas  

tree.

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash