Keep

Back handed offers for help left on the table
as the ship goes down and all around the stars go out
with sounds so much like screams out in the distance.
All the doors in the hallway are locked and from
the window you can see how high you’ve gotten
and there is no going down without a fall.

Classified ads are now websites full of barely filled in
details where companies leave hooks empty of bait.
Most of us just wait until the benefits run out before
we sink down in our chairs and take a chance on something
new we know will eat at us just like termites do the trees.

The street is blocked off for the yearly festival so I’m forced
to drive around it all and I can’t see the good time I am missing.
That’s probably for the best though because the ignorance
is like a drug that numbs the pain. Sometimes I feel like
I am passed between the clock towers of two towns that don’t
want anything to do with me, and the more I see of both of them
the more mutual that feeling then becomes.

Still there is the sunlight burning car seats through a windshields
like a magnifying glass out in the desert where the wells dry up
like worms caught on the pavement. I would do almost anything
to help if I am able, but because of this I cannot stop the payment.
I am a vein that money likes to trickle through to get to you
but over time some other pathway will appear.

It’s kind of like a river reinventing itself with every second
it is moving toward the sea, but I can’t see past the horizon
with all the dust kicked up between me and the foreground.
Some lucky numbers never turn up when you need them
but still you always find them in the corners like they’re
calling out to tell you something secret.
At this point I don’t think that I can keep it.