Holding Pen

The unsettled thoughts nest in my brain

I can no longer recall the sensation of the absence of the hive

The under-construction highway is signaling the conditional surrender

Required to remain uncorrupted by the languid cup of suicide

Still a possibility the liquid could spill at any interval

So I don’t keep guns around

I focus on the triggers I can control

The drives become ritualized, methodical, and robot-like

To traverse point Q to point P and reverse

Rubbing noses in ant hills so that the poison-pierce

No longer swells the nostrils as the workers invade

Their tasks are instinct and a prerequisite to the salvation of choice

Order must precede peace in calamity’s wake

The flood corrupts those who dare to live life out of place

The arbor raises the vine and the vessel cannot sail without a rudder

I want to go home; there is no home

I want to go home; there is no home

I want to go home; there is no home

When I get there I hope I do not fear the need to buy a firearm

Nothing is ever enough, just death gripped so tightly

Crying to feel alive the highway smiles in how little

I am able to keep from each day; the memories fade into orphans

Lost like mayflies waiting their day in the sun and done and done

I imagine so little and expect even less and still the regret

Drips out of sight around the cheeks and into the ache

Of not wanting to try

All of this is a nest of twigs beyond my control

I imprint malicious disdain for every branch

Which I wish I knew how to counteract with effort to supersede

The simple mental impression of a man waiting in line

Inside his own body, for a day, for moments one after the other

Where a man exits a waiting area, finally through a door

Only to find another holding pen

So in appointments are demanded, tasks, adulthood alternative to suicide