A Brief Life

Your hair

leaves your gaze

behind.

It turns it off.

It has power.

An electrical

power.

Turn it off.

Your hair

is a shortcircuit

power.

Far away

from you

there is

something

other

than you.

An island

of diffuse

borders:

small,

damp,

cold.

I sit

here

and watch

you

from

the farthest

distance.

Despair

dries the mouth.

Saliva forms

a concentrated

white paste

that momentarily

washes down

with water.

But then

it returns.

Despair

always returns.

I separate the garbage

waiting for a Summer 

that never comes. 

They say the sun 

ferments the waste, 

bad bacteria

grow,

and then it rots. 

In the Summer,

the river smells

of putrefaction.

That’s why 

they won’t let 

the Summer come.

It has been

forbidden.

Rise up against fear

for fear will not rise.

It falls,

crushes,

sinks.

Fear,

that gravitational force.

I only feel like a stranger

when you tell me to wear a raincoat

even when it hasn’t rained

in three weeks.

That is as strange to you

as it is to me.

You’re surprised that I speak

your language.

But you expect everybody

to speak your language.

You say you don’t judge.

But when you’re sober,

you judge.

And here I am,

sober as a judge.

When you’re sober,

I’m a stranger

and you judge.

The food

is not enough

if everybody eats.

The dead don’t eat.

Hunger should not be denied

to anyone.

Only to the dead.

They don’t eat.

Polyester fibres

glow in the dark.

You’re either shocked

or fascinated

with what I say.

The glow in the dark.

You have to rub them

hard

against each other.

Hard.

That’s how they sparkle.

You’re fascinated

and they glow.

In the face of death

not even the elite

is the elite.

Our secrets

become useless.

We leave them behind

among other belongings

that also become

useless.