I Hear Them Bleeding Hope
published in The Blue Nib Literary Magazine

Being buried in a crate with just
enough space between
the slats
for damp earth

to trickle in on me
at a tortuously hideous crawl
used to be my first worst way
to die

alone in the loam
while a grimy
suffocation
claimed my breath.

Captured by a blaze
ignited unaware
with every nerve ending
scorched

charred
by a merciless murderer
ashing me utterly
completely reducing me

to my smallest parts
consummation by fire
used to be my second worst
way to die.

My third worst way
to lose myself
used to be
drowning in one

enormous desperate
gasp for oxygen
before submitting
to eternal bloat.

But then I
learned about
these people who are left to
crumble

growing shattery at the mercy of
endless ennui
half wound down
confined to a box within a box within a box

stagnant with
mortality
relinquished
discarded

in the dim.
I hear them bleeding hope
in the Old Folks Rest Home
where we go

on the last Thursday of every month
jilted
extinguished
left to haunt airless hallways

curdled thick by anguish
abandonment
fairly begging for the exit
through motionless

decomposition.
This is my new
worst way
to die.