don't feel bad your only alive and living

i lay belly up with saddened eyes. i can hear the empty space all around, vibrant and alive. I turn on turn off the tv. the ground is a long way down from up here. 13 floors up seems like a lot. There are no knocks on my door or rings on my phone. I could use some action so I open a beer. I look at the piles of mail, the laundry on the floor. Then in the bathroom the piles of change the dirty razors and toothpaste that sticks to the sink and just doesn't want to go. I look in the fridge and no I don't want pizza from a month ago. I don't want ketchup or mustard, jelly, or expired milk. I don't want frozen chicken breasts or way overdue flatbread.

I go ouside to smoke but more to change my environment. I sit there and the people who don't know the city walk by. Some of them probably think I'm a bum. I don't buy new clothes til mine have fallen apart. A real bum with nicer things on than me walks by and asks for a smoke. I say no and he looks at me with spite. I bet he has more change he has hussled from tourists in his pockets than I have in mine. I wish I could go to the bar or the track to straighten myself out a bit. Instead I just read and write. Bukowski spits out to me about solitude and love, two things he had all the time, or not at all. It seems sometimes that I've given up on music. I haven't really sat and played or tried to write anything for a while. The chords don't sound right, and i feel distant from the whole mess. I used to care, and work hard at it. Now I set it aside to bullshit myself or write this crap instead.

My mouth is dry and I need a drink.. I get up and down a glass with a couple vitamins and St. Johns Wort. No better than before. I cook a pancake and it it with some jelly and expired vegetable spread on top. I get the pan too hot and the second one burns. It still tastes good. I think to myself that I can't go on like this. I need some people, I need to joke and to laugh, and to be a part of something. I'm sick. I don't sneeze or cough, but I'm dazed and tired all the time. I'm constantly on the edge of giving up. Going somewhere I can crawl up and panhandle if I have to. Go from bottle to bottle, at this point it doesn't seem to lack any of the nobility that a wall street exec has at this point. I won't be annoying or steal, or scare people though. I would be polite, maybe offer some entertainment or service. Everyone likes a tapdancing vet. Hey folks! A ta ta ta! Bin Laden? More like been gotten! whoa here I go a ta ta ta At least I got my hands and feet I'm foreva happy! a ta ta ta I would sing gospel eat from the garbage and never feel sorry about myself or anyone again. The light we see through the tangled mess of lines going from our souls into society is bleak, not enough for a single flower to grow. Not enough for you, for me, or anybody.