baklava

It's these opaque days seen through grime tinted shades
when you've been talking to yourself too much
that you become involved with the subtleties
of your feet sinking into the floor,
ensconced in macabre day dreams
of water, you're surprised that you manage to consume so much
with all the fear roiling around in that stuff
it's living in the food you eat grown by unknown hands,
does that put their blood in your stomach,
it's in the clothes you wear, which smell faintly
of displacement and sorrow woven in with the stitches.
Stretch your surprise until it looks like chagrin
when you realize you're almost content with this
reduced life, internal prattling with past and future,
it's their company you keep, present is never anywhere but in her cups,
and its just as well when the infinite can be held in your hand
while now is so close to the eyes that it slips by unknown.
You know that this growing heavy is inevitable
that one day the ground will shiver and refuse to hold your weight,
you feel the possibility of being plunged into the unknown
with the monster that waits, and it isn't with fear
but a warm relief, to be embraced-
your mother didn't realize it was death you inhaled
when you struggled forth and wailed those first perfect sounds-
reliability should be comforting, but we alternate between angry and afraid.
In the dark life looks like a poorly done painting
found in a thrift store when you were young
of a little boat tossed in waves of brown and green and gray
thick paint tossed on by the untrained
and you bought it, liked the texture you say
it doesn't wipe away all that's been done wrong
but builds layers upon.
What are you made of,
if not manifold layers separated by everyman's heartache-
then thin sheets of nothing I say, an over indulgent baklava of decay.