Bad Day Blues

I forgot that life was fragile
For--what seems like years but really
adds up only to a little while
I once bit the head off a little glass turtle
to see if I could
I keep the shell in a place
I haven't yet forgotten to return
and it reminds me that my mouth makes sense
That was a time
so like now the future seems uncanny.
I know it is not.
I went home to tell a soul like mine
The Irony of the morning.
A fat dead rat upon my stoop
shook me up.
I never go home at ten A.M when I know
I must leave near eleven.
To myself, I thought, a smack in the face
from the universe
for being naughty,
lay before me.
Now I see I cam home so
my sensitive soulmate
wouldn't walk it alone.
I hid her from the hardly horror
of the rat. I cursed to myself.
I had to go it alone.
I'm glad I came home and I'm glad--
We walked it together.
Saw pain together.
Two sensitive souls. Swimming--
in a sea of sharp edges.
Everyone watched it all happen
and I imagine they were fine.
A glimpse of blood,
limp limbs, grimacing youth
was enough to suck the day up
through a straw.
I never go home at ten A.M
when I know I must leave around eleven.
I never thought, till now, if I didn't
She would have to go it alone.
A Shitty Bronx Apt. / 2013