Sometimes

I feel like the last matchstick

broken in half

waiting for someone to come

light me up – so I can burn ‘em –

burn ‘em good. 

Sometimes I’m a flickering light bulb

ready to be changed

trying futilely to hold on

to that last bit of filament,

 to make it last. 

Sometimes I’m a torn up shoe

on the side of a freeway

laughing at pileups.

Big billows of smoke

and the screaming, ah,

a symphony.

Sometimes I’m the ant

stuck on your shoe

stranded across the street,

the indistinguishable

untouched  week-old road kill,

the mattress splayed halfway

across the bike lane

like a stretch of beef

so that bikes swerve cars honk. 

Dogs piss on me.

Sometimes I’m the little potion Juliet downed,

Sometimes Romeo whispering

sweet-nothings to a corpse

knowing  the Beyond to be a brick backed

funnel to nothing to be found,

but the gun yet rests at my temple