Mess Hall

Mess Hall 

I was born broken, off

I acknowledge my humanity, interdependence

I am, however perpetually suspicious, skeptical

Of why anyone would find my presence beneficial 

I can see how others need others, but to view

These bones as something other than an anomaly

Or included in that which aspires or is capable of normal discourse

Has been all together shocking and preposterous 

Rear of a skull pressed to the intersecting walls

Of a corner of a mess hall, cafeteria of school children

Consuming lunch, I would rather depart than eat

The mathematics of the seating was disarming a bomb 

Only detonation was irrelevant, on occasion I watched

From the extending angles of the left wall, the right wall

The chairs, the milk bags, the sausage links

The candy bars and I was born with a disdain for chocolate

Even my taste-buds were anarchists 

The teeth, the acne, the halitosis, the fungus

The height, the soul, the writing, enrolled in pandemic poetry

Notebooks printing like images in a 3-D puzzle popping out

Only for me to view, the haze, the scuttle, the running for cookies 

I was still searching for water, the sand was everywhere

Never enough digging, my fingernails were falling out

The fungus was eating away the beds, Kurt Cobain was in my head

Nevermind, draw a picture, a crappy poem, blue carpet, nobody is home 

Thirty-four, feels like fourteen, twenty years and the numb has never left me

Even in the marriage, the sacrosanct, all an illusion, the decade in the tank

Lesson learned, never try, never attempt to convince anyone of anything

Homer said it best, “Trying is the first step towards failure.” 

Incapable, because the numb nothing has always been my something

The constant in the silence and it is my addiction and I will do anything

To retain my beloved, at this juncture it is my resolution, to remain till death

The most beautiful gift I could ever give, is to not have this virus spread

Like a contagion