Wednesday Morning - Dustin Vado

Groans of another man's release creep under stalls charring porcelain,

    I pray for no blood after smokes before coffee,
        the never breakfast

            after pissing in sun's​ daisies while the moon watched;
                I am used to it.

Driving in rain slipped between truck and grace
    swerving through zombie brothers,

        sisters who set their cubs aside for hours while they
            tend to their old young,

                and the children who are falling out of sympathy
                    with youth and toys,

            we all dream of home when we are jacked into ports;
                we are used to it.

My siblings don't always wake alone
    but feel it in cold sweat of work.

I am no longer half their age,
    closer to their grave than my own destiny.

I dream of what it should be,
    a friend in nightmares that sweats icicles

        jumping at coins falling from shower heads like
            acid reflux blizzards,

            our faces burned, leathery and gaunt
                imagine what it means to be

                    used by it, by all,
                        by any and by many
                            invisible souls.

The clock keeps ticking, and when its battery dies, there is another

    keeping time in death’s place while the living frolic like ignorant mares

        in line at the glue mill for their repurposing
            to sticky uses.

I no longer cough when dragging fumes from the mill,
    they taste like peppers

        sprouted from the ring of a bell in a crimson tower watching mares

            march in step with the snow that powders their faces,
                I got used to it.