O spinning wheel of my mistakes, splashy
parade of my charlatan past selves. This split
in my skull might never mend. Stitches
of the prior evening find flame, erupt
and take a dark cold hold of my hand.

Behind the shock-orange of my shut eyelids,
neon words strobe, in a crooked
scribble, repeating: What have I done
last night? What have I done
all my life? How can one mouth taste
of so many cigarettes, one dry tongue swell
like so much coarse and bitter builder’s foam?

Through the door I hear, in the marble-floored cavern
of my building’s lobby, footclicks ricochet,
rattlebeads in my cranial maraca, skeletal
fingers that type. A death warrant. How delicate
the veil between a sunny afternoon
and the shrieking fanged abyss. Idly
I wonder if there’s an unfinished glass
of wine in the fridge, or anywhere.

The cat brushes a whisker against my jowl.
One eye opens. Through a sun-scraped prism,
the knives of sight converge
into a kind of broken clarity,
or at least a broken
translucence.

---

originally published in ionosphere Vol II Issue 1.

Available in print from Amazon for $7.50 USD, or via eBook from Amazon (free to read with Kindle Unlimited).