Name us now by how our days go wasted. Call us by our collars, know us by the bridle and the bit. Toil away in the dirt, work your clean shirt racket like a champ, get tagged as essential so you can die in the harness dumber than the dumbest mule. It doesn’t matter if you’re docile and work like the devil. It doesn’t matter if you beat the machine and break every lead. It doesn’t even matter if you get up on your hind legs and fuss and fight for what you know is right. You’re either in or out, and by now you probably know it. I’m not worth a once over, I’m not worth a glance. Best to keep your eyes to yourself unless you’re ready for the last dance.
Look on the bright side, it’s there on the ceiling. Follow the sun so you don’t have to see. Another engagement with the empty ever after, bum rushed by the usual suspects because they know where you live. Crowded by grifters and idiot relations who figure whatever you’ve given up, whatever you’ve lost, there’s always more to take. Left to my own meager devices and whatever fairy story you want to tell about your generous soul and unblemished attentions. No one listens when you need to be heard. I stopped talking long ago, save to offer reciprocal fuck offs and to spice up the old heave ho.
Someone is ill, someone is dying. You have your duty, you have your heart. It doesn’t matter if the task fits, it doesn’t matter that it has killed you dead for the rest of the world. Sometimes there isn’t anyone else no matter how many others are hep to the jazz. It’s all you, or it’s your thieving relations, then a spate of strangers and institutions that you have every reason not to trust. Nobody asked me to step up, nobody wants me around. Someone better should be here, easing suffering and playing house. Days daisy chain into quicksilver years, everything you wanted or cared for is dashed to ruins, nothing ever gets better. After tomorrow, it’s today again. And again and again and again. The words go on unwanted— why should they be special? Just another habit in need of quitting.