room service

One plus one in a million somehow adds up the same. Who knows who’s counting who, the camera’s always on and the meter’s running. Another day gone and tomorrow nowhere nearer. The words stack up, and we spill and spill. The poems gather in the margins. The poems seep in through the seams. I speak out loud because no one’s listening. I talk to myself because the madness makes my day.

Vision dims and the shadows swell. The living room light is swallowed by the hallway. The smoke sticks to everything. The ghosts beat their bones against their last flecks and sparks, so long ago they lost the sense they were buried with. Reason sits in a corner, hands in pockets. Barking and braying, yet the world tumbles on.

We climb the narrow stairway. We shuffle down the corridors. Muffled voices and muted music. Wet coughs and numbered doors. All the strangers too familiar. The dark ahead, the day behind. Your story told in spoilers, burned out bulbs and the smell of enclosed air. All these walls, and one more door to go through. All these exits, and the door that closes behind.